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CAPTAIN HAL.L. 



IN 



AMERICA. 



BY AN AMERICAN. 



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CAREY & liEA. 



1830. 

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OBIGGS & DICKINSON, PRINTERS. 



CAPTAIN HAIiL. 



AMERICA. 



The following Remarks were, in substance, prepared, not 
long after the appearance of the work to which they refer, for 
the inspection of a gentleman in this country, to whose kindness 
the writer had been largely indebted. In the midst, indeed, of 
mutual and very sincere congratulation on the cordiality which 
seemed so happily to prevail between the two nations, Captain 
Hall came hastily to inform us, that there existed, on the con- 
trary, a spirit of '' mutual animosity" — and while he pledged a 
whole life's observation as to its general prevalence in Great 
Britain, referred to his late trip to the United States as having 
satisfied him that a corresponding temper was to be found in that 
country. The intelligence was no less painful than unexpected, 
particularly when followed up by a stern declaration that any 
attempt to soften these '' unkindly feelings" was not ^' either 
practicable or desirable." It was natural, under such circum- 
stances, that his book should be closely looked into, for the pur- 
pose of ascertaining the temper and qualifications with which he 
had entered on his task and been led to conclusions believed to be 
as erroneous as they are lamentable. The following pages disclose 
the result of that examination. They are now published on the 
suggestion — perhaps a rash one — that they exhibit greater anxi- 
ety and care than have been elsewhere displayed in reference to 
what must be deemed the primary object of solicitude, with 
all those who have at heart the continuance of peace and of a 
mutual good understanding. The writer has had the aid of the 
judgment of others in believing that, although they exhibit no 
temper of adulation towards this country, there will be found 
nothing which should, in fairness, defeat his purpose of calmly 
appealing to reason, and of endeavouring to dissipate what he 
deems an unhappy delusion. 

The Quarterly Review has boasted that its strictures, odious as 
they may be, are yet read and reprinted on the other side of the 
Atlantic. Undoubtedly no harm, but the contrary, is likely to 
result from what may sometimes serve to check that inordinate 
self-complacency and consequent arrogance, which it is, unfor- 
tunately, in every nation, the interest of domestic writers to 
flatter rather than to rebuke. Even when told, as in the Number 
for April last, that '^ Ms memory of fVcisMngton will probably 



1 

be nearly extinct before the present century expires,^' (p. 358;) 
the people of 'he Unired States, while they are quite incredulous, 
yet listen wilii piiiciice to ail that can be urged isi derogation of 
their ii.stitutions, anti of their great men, in the hope that, amidst 
a great deal of iingry as>sertion, there may, perhaps, be foundsome 
useful, though unpalatable, truth. The writer has no wish to 
try any such severe experiment on the good temper of the 
British Public. He will make no invidious predictions as to the 
personages most likely to be remembered at the close of this cen- 
tury, because he can see no advantage likely to result from such 
puerility, and because it really looks a little like taking an un- 
fair advantage — since a writer, now of mature age, cannot ex- 
pect, in the course of nature, to be alive at the period fixed, to 
answer to the public for misleading them on such a point. Nor, 
if jealousy must be roused where so many reasons exist for kind- 
ness and afi'ection, is he at all ambitious to be recognised, here- 
after, as one of those who struggled for the infamous distinction 
of being the lago of the tragedy. Leaving then, posterity 
quite untrammelled to its election, the writer is content, despite 
of the supposed national foible of anticipation, to meddle only 
with topics in reference to which falsehood may at once be de- 
tected and exposed. 

It must be obvious that nothing can well be more difficult 
than to give a conclusive answer to this allegation of hostility 
of feeling. To disclaim it is of little avail, for this is said to 
be the way with all prejudiced people. Were it, indeed, pos- 
sible to subject to a rigid cross-examination, in the presence of 
the two nations, all those who have taken on themselves the 
responsibility of spreading abroad these exasperating represen- 
tations, it might be no difficult task to succeed, as in private 
life, in transferring to the vulgar, mischief-making go-between, 
the odium which he has attempted to excite in kindred families. 
Though it is, unfortunately, out of our power thus to pursue 
and expose to shame all who have fabricated or diffused the ma- 
lignant tale, yet Captain Hall has, in this respect — whatever 
may be otherwise his merits — unquestionably rendered a valu- 
able service to both countries, since he has, unconsciously, fur- 
nished as striking an example as could be desired, of the perfect 
facility with which all such statements may be resolved, into 
the folly, the ignorance, the prejudices, the rude and insolent 
misconduct of the amiable personages, who take such pains to 
convince two nations that they cordially detest each other. 
He undoubtedly stands amongst the foremost of those who in» 
sist upon it, that Great Britain and America do and shall che- 
rish towards each other "unkindly feelings;" and were it not 
for the melancholy conclusion at which he arrives, it would be 
impossible not to smile at the completeness of the self-delusion 
under which he shows himself to have laboured from beginning 



to end. He reminds one of the soranambulc of the stage 
holding up a light to his own countenance, and enabling those 
who watch his movements to see how completely his eyes are 
closed. 

But a preliminary question may be asked — Cui Bono? 
Why this morbid anxiety about what is thought or said of you 
in England? Why not wrap yourselves up in the indifierencc 
and disdain which the tourist has recommended, and laugh to 
scorn, or return with interest, those '' unkindly feelings" of 
which he speaks? " Do we worry and fret ourselves about 
what is said of us in America? Certainly not," " I must say, 
that I have always thought this sort of soreness on their part a 
little unreasonable, and that our friends over the water gave 
themselves needless mortification about a matter which it 
would be far more dignified to disregard altogether." With- 
out stopping to remark that the temper here recommended to 
America, is precisely that which she has been heretofore ac- 
cused of cherishing — and without caring in reply to such coarse 
suggestions, to refer to those sympathies from which the de- 
scendants of Britons cannot readily disengage themselves — the 
writer may suggest that it is scarcely possible for this mutual 
hatred to remain long in the system in a dormant state. There 
are many — very many — points of discussion which will instant- 
ly spring up between the two countries in the event of a war 
in Europe, and a spark struck out from such a collision will ne- 
ver be wanting to kindle whatever it may light on of an in- 
iiammable nature. 

To indulge in the language of menace, on such a subject, to 
Great Britain, would defeat the writer's purpose, because she 
would instantly meet it with defiance. Yet it may not be un- 
worthy even of a brave, and very powerful, people to reflect, 
that they seem to be approaching, gradually, but inevitably, to- 
wards a great struggle, which is likely to task all their powerSy 
and to render it at least unwise to multiply, unnecessarily, the 
number of their enemies. Montesquieu, in his profoundest 
work, has said of the Turkish Empire, " Si quelque Prince 
que ce fut mettait cet Empire en peril en poursuivant ses 
conquetes les trois puissances commercantes de I'Europe con- 
naissent trop lours affaires pour n'en pas prendre h>. defense sur 
le champ.'''* True, the course of policy thus marked out has 
not been exactly followed. The Turk has been prostrated, 
and, when lifted from the ground by his late foe, will probably 
rise, according to the usual course of human passions, with a 
new and ardent desire for revenge on those whose magnificent 
phrases of friendship, as he alleges, led him to expect that time- 
ly aid which, in his hour of peril, he looked round for in vain. 
Unless all history, and the workings of the human heart be be- 
lied, this must be the present feeling of the himiiliated infidel; 



and, at the next turn of affairs, he may be found the willing and 
exasperated auxiliary of a power, which, at least, he cannot 
pretend to charge with having violated that Good Faith which 
it is his own great boast to have always most scrupulously ob- 
served. England must feel that the steelyards by which she 
has heretofore sought to adjust the balance of Europe, are at 
this moment rendered useless by the weight of the Autocratj 
and she is sufficiently disposed to cast her sword, like Brennus, 
into the scale. The late overstrained civility of the Turk is a 
circumstance which, at least amongst all the tribes of the Abo- 
rigines of America, has been invariably found the surest indica- 
tion of a deadly and well-concerted scheme of hostility. When 
it shall be ascertained, then, that Turkey is now a mere masked 
battery of Russia on the Dardanelles, it will probably be difficult 
for England to avoid adopting some decisive measures. Come 
when the struggle may, it will of course, so far as she is con- 
cerned, be carried on by her Navy, and in sixty days after its 
commencement, the United States will be in a flame, in conse- 
quence of that practice of Impressment which authorizes every 
British naval officer to take forcibly from American ships such 
seamen as — in his anxiety to complete his crew — he may choose 
to pronounce British subjects. Is it not worth a struggle, then, 
on the part of the moral and reflecting of both countries, to de- 
precate a temper which will render the calm discussion of such 
a subject quite hopeless? What possible advantage can result 
from the vulgar and stupid invective which, in a work of the 
standing of the Quarterly Review, is constantly poured on the 
United States? The very same number which condemns Gene- 
ral Washington to speedy oblivion, uses the following language 
with regard to another favourite of the American people: " Ge- 
neral Jackson is now at the top of the tree; how long he may 
maintain," &c. "The American statesman is but born to die 
and be forgotten. The Monroes, and Madisons, and Jeffersons, 
are sunk into the common herd. We do knoiv that General 
Jackson's conduct at New Orleans was not such as in the Eng- 
lish army would have promoted the captain of a company to a 
majority." Surely, this kind of language is calculated to answer 
no good purpose whatever; whilst its most obvious effect is to 
excite a deep feeling of resentment towards the only people from 
whom it is heard. Whither are our repelled affections to turn? 
The offer by the late Emperor Alexander of his mediation be- 
tween Great Britain and the United States was promptly ac- 
cepted by us, and the contemptuous rejection of it by the other 
party was heard of only after the American Commissioners had 
arrived at St. Petersburgh, and been received with the utmost 
warmth of kindness. The uniform courtesy — the friendly in- 
terest on all occasions — the solid acts of service of that illus- 
trious personage, have made a deep impression on the minds of 



the Americans, who are grateful even for kind words. It is 
scarcely necessary to add, that the memorable declaration of 
Russia on the subject of Neutral Rights in 1780,* is to the last 
degree acceptable to the United States. The Abbe de Pradt, re- 
ferring to the commercial advantages of Sweden, anticipates the 
time when her sailors, "reunis avec les marins des autres puis- 
sances de I'Europe forceront peut etre quelque jour I'Angle- 
terre a temperer par la justice I'exercise de sa superiorite mari- 
time." Why compel America to look forward with pleasure 
to such a period as bearing upon the fortunes of a spiteful, li- 
bellous, and malignant enemy? 

But it is high time to revert to Captain Hall's Travels. The 
whole of the work, except what relates to the personal move- 
ments of the Captain and his family, consists of a comparison 
between the institutions, character, and manners of the Ameri- 
cans, compared with those of Great Britain, always to the dis- 
advantage of the former, and generally conveyed in terms bit- 
terly sarcastic and contemptuous. It will puzzle the reader to 
understand how he could express, on the one hand, more of eu- 
logium, or, on the other of reprobation; and yet there is found, 
at page 14 of his first volume, the following extraordinary de- 
claration: — "Every word I now publish to the world, I have 
repeatedly and openly spoken in company in all parts of the 
United States; or, if there be any difference between the lan- 
guage I there used in conversation and that in which I now 
write, I am sure it will not be found to consist in overstatement, 
but rather the contrary." And again: " I repeated openly, and 
in all companies, every thing I have written in these volumes, 
and a great deal more than, upon cool reflection, I choose to say 
again." " I never yet saw an American out of temper: I fear I 
cannot say half so much for myself," &c. The additional bit- 
terness imparted to his oral communications could not have 
been in substance, but must have been in manner; and this idea 
is strengthened by another paragraph: " The lady's suspicions, 
however, instantly took fire on seeing the expression of my 
countenance.^' That his own deportment was uniformly of- 
fensive, may be inferred from his complaining with an amusing 
naivete, ^^Theyw&re eternally on ihe defensive." Another 
favourite topic, and one which he good-naturedly, urged upon 
the Americans on all occasions, was their utter insignificance in 
the scale of nations. " I will now ask, as 1 have often asked, 
any candid American, how it would have been possible for 
us to look across the murky tempest of such days, in order to 
take a distinct view, or any view at all^ of a country lying so 
far from us as America." " They cannot, or when brought 
ttt close quarters, they seldom deny that they have done scarce- 
ly any thing," &,c. 

* See Annual Register for that year, p. 347. 



The females seem to have been the peculiar objects of his sar- 
castic *'tone," and "expression of countenance." Thus, on 
visiting the High-school for girls, at New York, Captain Hall 
requested that the poem of Hohenlinden might be recited. 
This having been done, and his opinion given, " I suppose," 
says he, "therewas something in my tone which did not quite 
satisfy the good schoolmistress;" and she asked him to state his 
objections. He complained, accordingly, that "in England, the 
word com,bat was pronounced as if the o, in the first syllable, 
was written w, cum.bat, and that instead of saying shivalry, the 
ch, with us, was sounded hard, as in the word chin.'^ It is not 
so much with his criticism we have at present to do, as with the 
sneering question with which he represents himself to have pre- 
faced it. "Pray," said he, " is it intended that the girls should 
pronounce the words according to the received usage in England, 
or according to someJi'inerican variation in tone or emphasis?" 

The universal hospitality with which Captain Hall was re- 
ceived seems to have excited his suspicion. "Every one, as 
usual, more kind than another, and all so anxious to be useful." 
He ate, it is true, of the " goodly suppers of oyster soup, ham, 
salads, lobsters, ices, and jellies, to say nothing of the cham- 
paigne, rich old Madeira, fruits, and sweetmeats, and various 
other good things;" yet he mused over all this. It wore an air 
of concert. " Foregad they are in a tale," says the sagacious 
and wary Dogberry, on hearing both prisoners protest their in- 
nocence. What could the crafty Yankees mean by thus fatten- 
ing him up? What ulterior objects had they? At length, with 
his accustomed ingenuity, he contrived to frame an hypothesis 
which settled the difficulty. This hospitality has its origin in 
a kind of superstitious feeling about their deadly hatred of Eng- 
land, and is designed, like the giving of alms or founding a 
church in old times, as a sort of compromise with conscience, 
for harbouring the most unchristianlike propensities. An Ame- 
rican, according to Captain Hall, is "^/craf of any opportunity 
to make up, by his attention to individuals, for the habitual 
hostility which, as a sort of duty, they appear collectively to 
cherish against England as a nation." 

Lord Chesterfield, writing to his son, has the following re- 
marks as to the Parisians: 

"In Paris they are particularly kind to all strangers who will 
be civil to them, and show a desire of pleasing. But they must 
be flattered a little; not only by words, but by a seeming prefer- 
ence given to their country, their manners, and their customs; 
which is but a very small price to pay for a very good reception. 
Were I in Africa, I would pay it to a negro. " Le Sage, too, in 
making a hit at what he found the universal human nature of his 
day, represents poor Gil Bias as turned oflf by the Abp. of Gra- 
nada, for gently hinting the truth, after having been expressly 



9 

t'/rdered to nonce and reporttheleastfailureof intellectual vigour. 
But the Americans, according to Captain Hall, manifested nothing 
of this silly weakness. They did not make their hospitality at all 
contingent on his willingness to humour their prepossessions. 
He said to their faces all thecontemptuous things which we find in 
his work, and a great deal more. There was nothing about him 
of " that gentleness and urbanity" which, in the language of Sir 
Walter Scott, when sketching his favourite character, "almost 
universally attract corresponding kindness." Yet these people 
were proof against all provocation. Captain Hall says, he went 
the length of declaring, that it was *^' characteristic" of Ameri- 
cans to retain that animosity v/hich, with the more generous 
Englishman, had passed ofi' with the flash of the guns. They did 
not thrust him out of doors, as the Archbishop did Santillane, 
wishing him a great deal of happiness, ivith a little more taste. 
When he returned from Canada to New York, aftei-^his philippic 
at Brockville, he thus describes his reception: " We were soon, 
indeed, made still more sensible of our sympathy with it by the 
renewed attentions and kind offices of every description, on the 
part of friends, who would give the character of home to every 
quarter of the world." He expresses a hope, that his book will 
be received "with the same frank and manly good humour, which 
I felt as the highest onmpliment to my sincerity, and the most 
friendly encouragement that could possibly be offered to a stranger 
wishing to investigate the ti'uth. Had it been otherwise, or had 
any ill temper slipped out on these occasions, my researches 
must have been cut short." And so of another City, after his 
return from the West, "We could scarcely believe that Phila- 
delphia, which however, we had always liked, was the same 
place, every thing looked so clean and comfortable, and the peo- 
ple were all so kind, and so anxious to be useful, as if they 
wished to recompense us for the hardships we had been ex- 
posed to in the West." Speaking of the entire population, he 
declares, "I must do them the justice to say, that I have rare- 
ly met a more good natured, or perhaps, I should say, a more 
good tempered people; for during the whole course of my jour- 
ney, though I never disguised my sentiments, even when op- 
posed to the avowed favourite opinions of the company, I never 
yet saw an American out of temper." Yet Captain Hall has 
meanly consented to borrow the epithet of The Quarterly Re- 
view (No. 7S, p. 356,) and to designate the Americans as 
^' this most thinskinned of all people." 

Another of Captain Hall's favourite topics, was, it seems, a 
reference, in a style of his own, to the War of the Revolution. 
The following passages may be grouped together, and will sug- 
gest a few remarks. 

"I have often met with people in that country who could 
scarcely believe me sincere, and thought I must be surely jest- 



10 

ing, when I declared my entire ignorance of many military and 
political events of the period alluded to, so momentous to them, 
however, that every child was familiar with the minutest de- 
tails. And they would hardly credit me when 1 said I had 
never once heard the names of men, who I learnt, afterwards, 
were highly distinguished on both sides, during the Revolu- 
tionary War." " We on this side of the Atlantic, in the Old 
Mother Country, who have been robbed of out young, are not 
only left without any encouragement to speak or think of such 
things with -pleasure, at this hour of the day, hut in times past, 
have been deterred by every motive of national and personal 
pride acting in concert from such inquiries." "We, who 
were then either not in being, or mere children, could have no 
agreeable motive, as we grew up, to tempt us to investigate 
such a subject for ourselves, or to listen to the tale told us by 
our seniors in the bitterness of their spirit. Even if we did 
hear it spoken of by them, it was always in terms which never 
encouraged us to push our inquiries farther, or disposed us to 
think very kindly of the neiu countries which had gained 
their point, in spite of all our efforts to the contrary." " If I 
were asked to give my countrymen an example of the extent 
of the ignorance which prevails in America with respect to En- 
gland, I might instance the erroneniis, hut almost universal 
opinion in that country, that the want of cordiality, with 
which the English look upon them, has its origin in the old 
recollections alluded to: and I could never convince them that 
such vindictive retrospections, which it is the avoived pride 
and delight of America to keep alive in their pristine asperity, 
were entirely ybrce^n to the national character of the En- 
glish, and inconsistent with that hearty John Bull spirit, which 
teaches them to forget all about a quarrel, great or small, the 
moment the fight is over, and they have shaken hands with 
their enemy in token of such a compact. At the same time I 
cannot, and never did deny, that there existed amongst us a 
considerable degree of ?<«A;m^/y feeling towards America, but 
this I contended was ascribable not by any means to past squab- 
bles, recent or remote, but exclusively to. causes actually in ope- 
ration, in their full force at the present moment, and lying far 
deeper than the memory of these by-gone wars." " There is 
this very material, and I take the liberty of saying characteris- 
tic difference between the two cases. We have long ago forgot- 
ten and forgiven — out and out — all that passed," &c. "Over 
the speaker's head, was, of course, the large well known pic- 
ture of General Washington, with his hand stretched out, in 
the same unvaried attitude in which we had already seen him 
represented in many hundreds, I may say thousands, of places, 
from the Capital at Albany to the embellishments on the coarsest 
blue China plate in the country. " 



11 

Is not this very puerile? The anxiety, moreover to multiply 
sarcasms, has surely betrayed the author into some degree of 
inconsistency. He is first seen to account, very satisfactorily, 
for th'e circumstance that the War of the American Revolution 
has never been in Great Britain a favourite portion of history; 
he talks of the *' bitterness of spirit," which survived the con- 
test, and which always manifested itself when the men of that 
day afterwards even touched upon the subject to their descend- 
ants " as they grew up;" and an indisposition to "think kind- 
ly" of America was the natural result. Yet he forthwith turns 
round, and is very indignant at the notion that either father or 
son, ever deigned to remember any thing about this same war 
— such tenacity of memory, being inconsistent with that hearty 
John Bull spirit, which teaches tHem to forget all about a 
quarrel, great or small, the moment the fight is over," &c. 
Really the Captain's theory on this subject is a very singular 
one. He means to say, if any clear inference can be drawn 
from his expressions, that there can be no lingering feeling of 
''unkindness," in reference to that war, because though the old 
people did to their dying day, speak of it in the " bitterness of 
their spirit," though the young, from these outbreaks of pas- 
sion, did take up from infancy a notion that they ought not to 
*' think kindly" of America, yet the Englishman of the pre- 
sent day is not familiar with the details of the odious contest, 
and has been "deterred" from looking into them, by a fear 
that his ^^ national and personal pride" might be too deeply 
wounded in the examination. Surely Captain Hall cannot have 
deceived even himself by such arrant nonsense. However the 
fact may be, certainly the language of this writer would go 
very far to establish the existence of such a feeling. He re- 
presents it as hereditary, blind, intractable; connected with a 
notion of deep indignity offered to those, to wliom are due life, 
nurture, education, whatever is most valuable and endearing. 
Let us suppose the incident to be one in private life; touching 
merely "personal" and not also "national" pride — some foul 
stain on the honour ol a female member of a proud house — 
does Captain Hall suppose, that because the details of the se- 
duction might not be a subject of frequent recital — because the 
younger members of the family might gather them, brokenly 
at moments of parental anguish, that, therefore, the impression 
of hate and resentment would be less vivid and permanent, 
than if all the particulars had been frequently discussed at the 
fireside? We must hope that Captain Hall is mistaken as to his 
premises; his inference is manifestly absurd. 

But all this serves only as an introduction to his remark, that 
it is characteristic of the Americans to cherish national resent- 
ments, and his reason for fixing so odious a charge on a people 
whom he found most mild, placable, and good tempered, is, that 



12 

they did not seem to have the same morbid horror, as himself, 
of looking into the History of the Revolution. Thus his doe- 
trine would seem to be that no incidents should be remembered 
bv either party to a war, unless they are of a flattering character 
to both of the combatants, and that there should be inserted in 
every Treaty of Peace an article declaring what battles may be 
talked of without danger or offence. Yet in England, the 
Frenchman is still doomed at the theatres and the places of edu- 
cation, to hear perpetual allusions to matters as far " by-gone" 
as the battle of Agincourt; the schoolboy yet spouts — 

"I tell thee, herald, 
I thought upon one pair of English legs 
Did march thret Frenchmen ! yet forgive me, God, 
That 1 do brag thus. This your air of France 
Has blown that vice on me!" 

and the youthful king is heard ^.o cheer his followers with the 
hope of that very reward, which Captain Hall assures us Ame- 
rican gratitude has bestowed on the heroes of the Revolution:— 

"This story shall tlie good man teach his son." 

" Oui' names 
Familiar in their mouths as household words," 

" Be he ne'er so vile 
This day shall gentle his condition." 

Would not an Englishman be inclined to smile at hearing his 
visiter from the other side of the Channel complain that where- 
ever he went in London — amongst the living or the dead— he 
found something to force on his attention the recollection of the 
contests of the two nations? The monuments at Westminster 
Abbey and St. Paul's embody the strife of ages: If he walk about 
the town he finds himself in Waterloo Place: if he wish to cross 
the river, he is recommended to Waterloo Bridge; and he cannot 
take an airing in Hyde Park but there is the Duke of Welling- 
ton, under the guise of Achilles, with legs and arms "eternal- 
ly extended," frowning defiance at him, from a pedestal labelled 
with satire on France. In vain would he declare that he had 
forgotten all about these matters, "out and out;" that a chival- 
rous Frenchman scorned to retain animosity, and that it almost 
maddened hini to see so many images, " hundreds, I may say 
thousands," of "The conqueror of Napoleon," on sign-posts, 
snufi'-boxes, coffee-pots, and pocket handkerchiefs. It would 
be equally in vain for the Spaniard to ask that the tapestry of 
the House of Lords should be taken down as commemorative 
of " by-gone" hostility, and as having furnished so many irri- 
tating allusions against his country. 

But the most alarming disclosure as to the Captain's temper is 
in the following confession, after he had been only a few weeks in 
the country: " I acknowledge fairly that after some experience 
in the embarrassing science of travelling, I have often been so 



13 

much out of humour with the people amongst whom I was wan- 
dering, that I have most perversely derived pleasure from meet- 
ing things to find fault with; and very often, I am ashamed to 
say, when asking for information, have detected that my luish 
urns rather to prove my original and prejudiced conceptions 
right, than to discover that 1 had previously done the people 
injustice.^^ 

He visited one of the watering places, hut it was after the 
season had passed; and the building seems to have been hastily- 
run up to accommodate an unexpected crowd of company. " It 
is true we were at the Springs after the season was over, and, 
therefore, saw nothing in the best style; but I must describe 
things as I found them, in spite of the explanations and apologies 
tvhich were showered upon me whenever anything, no matter 
how small or how great, luasobjected to. He wished one of the 
windows of the dining-room to be kept open, " but there had not 
been time to place any counterpoises, nor even any bolt or button 
to hold it up; the waiter, however, as usual, had a resource at 
hand, and without apology or excuse, caughtupthe nearestchair, 
and placing it in the window seat, allowed the sash to rest upon 
it." The poor people must have had a hard time, with a guest, 
who, in the same breath, damns them because they shower apolo- 
gies on him, and because they do 7iot offer any apology for com- 
plying as far as could be done, with his wishes. Again; " When 
the Chambermaid was wanted, the only resource was to pro- 
ceed to the top of the stair, and there pull a bell-rope, common 
to the whole range of apartments." 

It is not until near the close of the book that we are led into a 
secret as to the bodily condition of Captain Hall, which may, 
perhaps serve as a clue, to many of his irregularities of temper. 
Certain expressions occur, which lead us, charitably, to frame 
for him the apology which has been made for his countryman 
and prototype as a traveller — Smelfungus. Thus he speaks of 
a tourist being so entirely out of conceit, as it is called, with 
the whole journey, and every thing connected with it, that he 
may wonder why he ever undertook the expedition, and heartily 
wish it over. At such times all things are seen through a bil- 
lious medium,''^ (vol. 3, pp. 306, 7.) With an amiable frank- 
ness he lets us into all the little personal peculiarities, which 
self-examination or the close observation of others had detected. 
Thus: <' I have not much title, they tell me, to the name of 
gourmond or epicure." Yet in the very same page he is seen 
heedlessly running into an excess, which any body could tell 
him would bring on his complaint. The only expression of 
enthusiasm in his book is about his meals. " A thousand years 
would not wipe out the recollection of our first breakfast at New 
York," and again he speaks of "the glorious breakfast," and 
finally declares it was '' as lively a picture of Mahomet's sensual 



14 

paradise, as could be imagined; nothing but shame, I suspect, 
prevented me from exhausting the patience of the panting wai- 
ters, by further demands for toast, rolls, and fish," (the very 
worst things he could take.) Of course after such a piece of in- 
discretion he is as heavy, miserable, and peevish, as that Sophy 
whom Byron commemorates, and whose savage cruelty of tem- 
per is referred to the like dcranojemcntof iHr digestive organs. 

We may advert to another of the topics of coaversation by a 
perpetual introduction, of which Captain Hall sought to render 
himself agreeable. 

*'The practical difficulty which men who become wealthy 
have to encounter in America, is the total absence of a perma- 
nent money-spending class in the society, ready not only to 
sympathise with them, but to serve as models in this difficult 
art.'^ "A merchant, or any other professed man of busi- 
ness, in England, has always before his eyes a large and per- 
manent money-spending class to adjust his habits by. He is 
also, to a certain extent, in the way of communicating fami- 
liarly with those, who having derived their riches by inheri- 
tance, are exempted from all that personal experience, in the 
science of accumulation, which has a tendency to augment the 
difficulty of spending it well." 

If the reader has had the patience to follow this exposition 
of Captain Hall's temper and course of conduct, it will scarcely 
be deemed a matter of surprise, that, in these discussions, his 
antagonists did not deem it their part to pay extravagant com- 
pliments to the institutions cast up to them in the way of dis- 
paraging contrast. He represents himself as uttering, on all 
occasions, and in every company, the severe things he has here 
printed, and worse. Surely, then, a gentleman or a lady, 
forced to be ^^ always on the defensivej^' might well leave the 
other side to a champion whose voice, gestures, and " expres- 
sion of countenance," were all enlisted. It appears that Cap- 
tain Hall is a Scotchman. Let us suppose that he were to tra- 
vel over England in the same temper, and holding pretty much 
the same language as that in which his countryman, Sir Archy 
Mac Sarcasm, makes love: 

" Sir Jlrchy. Why, madam, in Scotland, aw our nobeelity 
are sprung frai monarchs, warriors, heroes, and glorious achieve- 
ments; now, here, i' th' South,, ye are aw sprung frai sugar 
hogsheads, rum puncheons, wool packs, hop sacks, iron bars, 
and tar jackets; in short, ye are a composition of Jews, Turks, 
and Refugees, and of aw the commercial vagrants of the land 
and sea — a sort of amphibious breed ye are." 

" Charlotte. Ha, ha, ha! we are a strange mixture indeed, 
nothing like so pure and noble as you are in the North." 

^' Sir Archy. O, naithing like it, madam; naithing like it— 



we are of anaither keedney. Now, madam, as ye yoursel are 
nai weel propagated, as yee hai the misfortune to be a cheeld 
o' commerce, ye should endeavour to .mack yeer espousals in- 
tul yean of oor auncieut noble fameeiies of the North; for yee 
mun ken, madam, that sic an alliance will purifj^ yeer blood, 
ane gi yee a ronk and consequence in the world that aw your 
palf, were it as muckle as the Bank of Edinburgh, could not- 
purchase for you." . The nature of his quarrel with the Irish 
Sir Callaghan, about a matter so far by-gone as the mode in 
which Scotland was peopled, may be gathered from his denun- 
ciation, " Though yeer ignorance and vanety would make con- 
querors, and ravishers of yeer auncestors," &c. ; and these are 
his parting words of advice, " But now, Sir Callaghan, let me 
tell ye, ass a friend, ye should never enter iotul a dispute about 
leeterature, history, or the anteequity of fameeiies, frai ye ha' 
gotten sick a wecked, aukard, cursed jargon upon your tongue, 
that yee are never inteelegeble in yeer language." 

Imagine a Scotchman, in this temper protruding on every 
company in England, into which he might gain admittance, a 
loud and vehement preference of the institutions, society, and 
manners of his part of the Island, over those of the Sister 
Kingdom. Such conduct would, in the first instance, be gently 
parried, as only silly and ill-bred; but if his letters of inti'O- 
duction were such as to cause his frequent reappearance in so- 
ciety, and he were found there perpetually indulging in the 
language of disparagement — putting on a harsh and contemptu- 
ous '' expression of countenance" towards the lady next to 
him at the table, who might venture to question his opinions, 
it is scarcely possible to believe that he could escape rebuke. 
Had he lived in the days of Dr. Johnson, and found his way 
to the Club, what a glorious day for Boswell! Writing to his 
Biographer (set. 66,) the great Lexicographer says, " My dear 
Boswell, I am surprised that knowing as you do, the disposi- 
tion of your countrymen to tell lies in favour of each other, 
you can be at all affected by </^2y reports that circulate among 
them." Boswell adds, in a shy, timid note, "My friend has, 
in his letter, relied upon my testimony, with a confidence of 
which the ground has escaped my recollection.'^' Even from 
gentler spirits he would be very apt to hear of some of those 
matters of sarcasm which Junius, and Macklin, and Wilkes, 
and others, so abundantly supply as to their effrontery — their 
pushing temper — their meanness — their " booing" sycophancy 
■ — their absurd prejudices, &c. ; and as Captain Hall tells us of 
his " much acquaintance" with *' all classes of society in En- 
gland," he would certainly have been assailed amongst the low- 
er orders with all sorts of scurrilous allusions to their beggarly 
disposition, their want of cleanliness, with more than one un- 
pleasant consequence which may not be named. Goldsmith 



lo 

speaks of a Scotchman, in London, who refused to take reme- 
dies for a cutaneous eruption, declaring that so far from being 
an annoyance, the constant necessity for friction tended to make 
him "unco thoughtful" of the wife and bairns he had left at 
home. Last, though not least, of the vulgar charges,, would be 
the origin of Burkeing. 

Unquestionably such a traveller would return from his finished 
tour, grown ten times more prejudiced than he started. He would 
assure his friends that it was high time to dissolve the Union — 
that he had not heard, during his v/hole journey, a word of com- 
pliment to his native country; but that every allusion to it was 
in a sneering, disparaging temper. And why was this the case? 
Simply because, with a person so utterly rude and ill-bred as 
to advert to such topics, merely for the purpose of making in- 
solent comparisons, there was neither necessity nor inclination 
to enlarge on the many admirable qualities of Scotchmen — their 
bravery, their energy of purposcj their intelligence, their ho- 
nour, their patriotism. Just so it must be in America, and in eve- 
ry other country, visited by .a traveller in the same absurd tem- 
per. Captain Hall certainly did not behave thus among the 
savages of Loo-Choo, whom he represents to us as so amia- 
ble and sentimental; but having been egregiously duped by 
them, he really seems to have settled down into the melancholy 
conclusion of Sir Peter Teazle, when his sentimental friend 
stood exposed: " It's a d — d bad world we live in, and the few- 
er we praise the better. " 

Probably the greater matter of surprise to the reader will be, 
that amidst all these heats, he never got into a downright quar- 
rel. But he declares, " I must do the Americans the justice 
to say, that they invariably took my remarks in good part." 
Even in Kentucky, whence the English reader would scarcely 
expect such a traveller to escape without, at least, the loss of 
an eye, his vision was not only uninjured, but opened fully upon 
the magnificent features of that beautiful region, and the charac- 
ter of its frank-spirited and generous people. " The narrow 
bends or reaches also of the magnificent Ohio, just at this spot, 
covered over with steam-boats and rafts, and fringed with noble 
forests and numberless villas, added greatly to the enchantment 
of the scenery at this most interesting section of all the back- 
woods. I need hardly say that our letters of introduction soon 
brought troops of friends to our service, who, as in every other 
part of this hospitable country, were anxious to make our stay 
agreeable and profitable." 

In the celebrated ' ' Memoir" of Talleyrand, he thus states the 
result of his personal observation: "Identity of language isafun- 
damental relation, on whose influence one cannot too deeply 
meditate. This identity places between the men of England and 
of America a common character, which will make them always 



take to and recognise each other. But an insurmountable barrieris 
raised up between people of a different language, who cannot utter 
a word without recollecting that they do not belong to the same 
country; betwixt whom every transmission of thought is an irk- 
somelabour, and notan enjoyment ; who never come to understand 
each other thoroughly; and with whom the resuH of conversation, 
after the fatigue of unavailing efforts, is to find themselves mutually 
ridiculous. "Norshould one be astonished tofind thisassimilation 
towardsEngland in a country, the distinguishing features of whose 
form of Government, whether in the Federal Union, or in the se- 
parate States are impressed with so strong a resemblance to the 
great lineaments of the English Constitution. Upon what does 
individual liberty rest at this day in America? Upon the same 
foundation as English Liberty, upon the Habeas Corpus and the 
Trial by Jury. Assist at the Sittings of Congress, and of those 
of the Legislatures of the separate States. Whence are takea 
their quotations, their analogies, their examples? From the Eng- 
lish Laws — from the customs of Great Britain — from the rules 
of Parliament. Enter into the Courts of Justice, what authorities 
do they cite? The Statutes, the Judgments, the Decisions, of the 
English Courts, Doubtless, if such men have not an inclination 
towards Great Britain, we must renounce all knowledge of the 
influence of laws upon man, and deny the modifications which 
he receives from all that surrounds him " 

We will consent to use, on such a subject, the testimony of 
Lieutenant De Roos; " Nothing can be more unfounded than the 
notion which is generally entertained, that a feeling of rancour 
and animosity against England and Englishmen, pervades the 
United States." "Though vilified in our Journals, and ridi- 
culed upon our Stage, they will be found, upon nearer inspec- 
tion, to be brave, intelligent, kind-hearted, and unprejudiced; 
though impressed with an ardent, perhaps an exaggerated, ad- 
miration of their own country, they speak of others without 
envy, malignity, or detraction." "One introduction is suffi- 
cient to secure to an Englishman a general and cordial welcome." 
** At New York the character of an Englishman is a passport, 
and it was to this circumstance that we owed the facility of our 
entrance and the kindness of our reception." At a table d'hote, 
*' We were, however, treated with the greatest civility by the 
promiscuous party who drank the king's health, out of compli~ 
ment to our nation." 

Mr. Stanley, a Member of Parliament, who recently travelled 
in the United States, held in the House of Commons, the fol- 
lowing language. " So strong were the ties of a common origin 
that an English gentleman travelling in that Great Republic is 
sure to meet with the most hospitable reception, as he well knew 
by personal experience. That great country was proud to ac- 
knowledge its relationship to England, and to recognise the love 

3 



18 

and attachment it yet felt to the mother country, and would feel 
for ages." 

Would it not, indeed, be most extraordinary, if any such dis- 
jiaraging sentiment, as Captain Hall represents, should be found 
generally to prevail amongst a grave and thoughtful people, when 
all the forms and institutions which concern them most nearly, 
are on their very face of a purely derivative character? Not a 
controversy, in any part of the Union, about an acre of land or 
a barrel of cod-fish, can be settled wrthout asking what has been 
said at Westminster Hall, on the principles involved in it. Even 
as to matters toucliing personal liberty and security, we lately 
saw, that when an English fugitive was violently taken from 
Savannah to New York, and there laid hold of by civil process, 
he was discharged, because by the common Law of England, 
which is equally in force in New York, the process was tainted 
by the impurity of the proceeding, which brought him within 
its reach. Lord Holt had so decided. Captain Hall was sur- 
prised to see a bust of Lord Eldon over a bookseller's shop in 
New York; and on going into the Supreme Court, he says, it 
was " curious to hear one of the lawyers quote a recent Eng- 
lish decision." Now does he think it possible, that persons who 
as jurymen, parties, or spectators, have this daily before their 
eyes — who find their own property, or that of their neighbours, 
passing on principles illusirated by Lord Coke, or Lord Ray- 
mond, or Lord Eldon, or Lord Tenterden — who recently saw 
Professors for a University anxiously sought for in England, 
even by the proud State of Virginia — are not prone to exagge- 
rate, rather than to undervalue the advantages derived by the 
Mother Country, from her greater wealth and her maturer age? 

Before we proceed to notice the remarks which Captain Hall 
has offered on the subject of the American Government, it may 
be well to advert, for a moment, to the qualifications which he 
brought with him to the task of criticism. The object of the 
more ambitious part of his book, is to institute a comparison be- 
tween the political and judicial establishments of Great Britain 
and those of the United States. The extent of his acquaintance 
with the former becomes, of course, an important preliminary 
inquiry. 

It would seem, from what is dropped in various parts of the 
work, that he was sent to sea at a very early age; so early, in- 
deed, that he represents himself, it is presumed by a figure of 
speech, to have been at no time stationary. " I have been oil 
my life at sea, or have been knocking ubout, in various parts of 
the globe, without ever having had leisure to read books written 
professedly on those topics, or even to take steps for making 
myself acquainted with what is the orthodox philosophy con- 
cerning ihem." He speaks, it is true, of "a little classical 
knowledge," picked up in his juvenile days." but his fear of 



19 

having lost it is expressed in such a way, that we are remiiicled 
of Dr. Johnson's well-known reply to the young gentleman, 
who complained of an actual loss of the same description. Of- 
ten as he vaunts, in his conversations, of the necessity in Eng- 
land of a "certain amount of classical knowledge," as the "in- 
dispensable mark of a gentleman," he forthwith evades any far- 
ther pursuit of the subject, or any friendly comparison of notes, 
by hastily adding, " always excepting, as you very well know, 
naval captains and country squires." In short — taking these 
circumstances in connexion with a reference which is made to 
the seductive influence of Robinson Crusoe, in " luring incor- 
rigible runnagates to sea" — it is probable that the expression 
which he uses, as to the early commencement of his rambles, is 
not very far from being literally true. In no other way is it 
possible to account for the utter ignorance which he betrays of 
some of the most familiar principles of the British Constitution, 
an ignorance of which any landsman would surely be ashamed. 
Thus with regard to the king, it is said by Blackstone, (vol. 1. 
p. 246. ) " The king can do no wrong. Which ancient and full' 
damental maxim^ &c. " And again, (vol. 3. p. 255.) "That 
the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental 
'principle of the English Constitution.^^ But mark the tru- 
ly sailor-like style in which Captain Hall refers to this "neces- 
sary and fundamental principle of the English Constitution," 
and the foundation on which he supposes it to rest! " la Eng- 
land there is a well-known saying, The king can do no wrong;'" 
thus resting this great principle on the same footing as "a cat 
may look at a king," or any other equally " well- known say- 
ing," touching the regal office. Would Captain Hall declare it 
" a well-known saying" in England, that a member of Parlia- 
ment cannot be questioned elsewhere for what he utters in the 
House? Surely not. And the strange ignorance he has be- 
trayed, however it may be palliated by his roving Robinson 
Crusoe habits, cannot well be excused in one who has reached 
a respectable rank in the British Navy. 

With regard to the Judicial establishments of the two coun- 
tries he is perpetually referring, in the language of taunt, to the 
superior firmness of the tenure of office in England. It is plain 
from every word he utters, that he is under a complete delusion 
as to the real state of the fact. In England, the Judges can be 
removed by a bare majority of the legislature, without any form 
of trial, or even an allegation of their having committed any of- 
fence. Paley states this with his usual correctness, (Principles 
of Moral and Political Philosophy.) "As protection against 
every illegal attack upon the rights of the subject by the ser- 
vants of the Crown is to be sought for from these tribunals, the 
Judges of the Land become not unfrequenily the arbitrators be- 
tween the king and the people, on which account they ought to 



20 

be independent of either; or what is the same thing, equally de« 
pendent on both; that is, if they be appointed by the one, they 
should be removable only by the other. This was the policy 
which dictated that memorable improvement in our Constitu- 
tion, by which the Judges, who before the Revolution held their 
offices during the pleasure of the king^ can now hp deprived 
of them only by an address from both Houses of Parliament; 
as the most regular, solemn, and authentic way by which the 
dissatisfaction of the People can be expressed Mr. Hallam 
in his Constitutional History, (vol, 1. p. 245,) remarks, "No 
Judge can be dismissed from office, except in consequence of a 
conviction for some offi^nce, or the address of both Houses of 
Parliament, which is, tantamount to an act of Legislature.^' 
And thus the matter rests at the present day. The same casting 
vote vvhich suffices to pass a lavv may dismiss the Judge whose 
interpretation of it is not acceptable. This is not the case in 
any i)art of the United States. The Judges of the National 
Courts cannot be reached by address at all. They may defy the 
president and both Houses of Congress. In the States where 
this English provision has been copied, it has been rendered 
comparatively harmless by requiring the concurrence of tivo- 
thirds of each branch of the Legislature in order to effect a re- 
moval. 

Let us suppose, for the sake of illustration, a question to arise 
on the Emancipation Bill, as it is called of last Session. The 
most strenuous supporters of that Bill, admitted it to be a vio- 
lation of what they designated as the Constitution of 168S. In 
Mr. Peel's speech, less than a year before, he declared " If the 
Constitution was to be considered to be the King,Lords, and Com- 
mons, it would be subverting that Coiistitution to- admit Ro- 
man Catholics to the pri^^ileg -s they sought; it would be an im- 
portant change in the State of the Constitution as established 
at the Bevohttion." {Speech in May, 18ii8.) Lord Tenter- 
den, the Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, in resist- 
ing in the House of Lords, the Bill subsequently introduced by 
Mr. Peel himself, de lared that " he looked upon the proposed 
measure as leading by a broad and direct road to the overthrow 
of the Protestant Church " (Times, 6 April, 1829.) Suppose 
the Serjeant at Arms should thrust back Mr. O'Connell on his 
attempting to enter the House of Commons, or any o'her cause 
arise bringing up the Act. Were Lord Tenterden, as a Judge, 
to use any language of an unsatisfactory kind, he might be hurled 
from his seat by that very Legislature, which was induced to 
pass the Law. In the United States, the people have denied 
themselves this power. Mr. Chi< f Justice Marshall might move 
intrepidly on, where Lord Chief Justice Tenterden must yield 
or be sacrificed. Congress fairly and equally represents the 
wliole country, yet it has not the power of a British Parliament 



•21 

to bring to bear on Judges what Paley calls " the displeasure of 
the people." 

It is a subject of curious reflection that until the Constitution 
of 168S, or rather until the 13th year of William IIT., Judges 
were, as Paley remarks, the creatures of the Crown. The ac- 
tual power of judicial appointment at p'-esent resides in Mr. Peel, 
the Home Secretary. He has said that the Constitution of 1688, 
would be subverted by measures which he has since urged 
through Parliament; if so, the king has an unlimited power of 
making and unmaking Judges. Put that Constitution out of 
view, and Lord Tenterden may be dismissed in the same way 
as his predecessor Lord Coke was, in the time of James I. 

Captain Hall has sad misgivings, he tells us, as to what will 
be our fate, if the Supreme Court should at any time falter in 
its duty, and consent to execute an unconstitutional law. Now 
there is, of course, no end to the hypothesis which an ingenious 
mind may frame as to the effect of derelictions of duty, by any 
department of a Government. The House of Commons may, 
as Paley remarks, " put to death the Constitution, by a refusal 
of the annual grants of monev to the support of the necessary 
functions of Government." So may the Judiciary commit some 
suicidal act. We have given to our Judges every motive to a 
high and fearless execution of tS^eir trust. The oa.h to support 
the Constitution, — absolute immunity, — and on the other hand, 
the infamy of judicial cowardice. Human precaution can go no 
farther. But where are we if all these securities prove ineffec- 
tual? Just wiiere other countries are, which do not intrust to 
the Judge, the power of canvassing a Legislative Act. What 
was the history of our Revolution? Whilst we were a part of 
the British empire, an attempt was made to tax us in (tefiance 
of a Common Law principle. As the Courts stood ready to en- 
force these odious measures we were driven to arms. Lord Chat- 
ham declared us to be in the right. Mr. Fox has subsequently 
placed on record his opinion, that our resistance preserved the 
integrity of the English Constitution, and Parliament itself has 
recognised the justice of our course by a definition of the true 
colonial principle. Our present position is this: — We have 
placed our Judges in a situation far more independent than the 
same functionaries enjoy in England. We are a patient, quiet 
people, and will submit to a great deal even of what we deem 
injustice, rather than put all these blessings in peril by violence: 
But, finally, we hold in reserve for intolerable grievances what 
Blackstone describes, even in England, as the last resort. 

It is the more to be regretted that Captain Hall should have 
exhibited an absurd ignorance on this subject, as he has thereby 
diminished materially the chance of our profiting by his criti- 
cism, even when better founded. A foreigner is often struck by 
errors to which the people, amongst whom they exist, are ren- 



22 

dered insensible, and his candid and temperate exposure of them 
may lead to a reformation, which might have heen struggled for 
in vain, by those whose motives were more liable to suspicion. 
Thus he very justly denounces the practice, in a few of the 
States, of rendering the Judges periodically elective — thinking 
that they are therelay exposed to, at least, a suspicion of ser- 
vility to the Government. He thinks that they ought to be 
placed on the same footing with the Judges of the United States, 
and of the larger States. But unfortunately he has thrown away 
all his influence as an auxiliary by. seriousl\ pretending to refer 
these misguided people, in the niost triumphant manner, to the 
case of England, when they are too well aware that an evil of 
the same character exists in that country, in a form infinitely 
more odious and alarming, and on a scale altogether stupendous. 
The allusion is, of course, to the High Court of Chancery. 
There is a sum at stake in the litigation of that Court-^nay, ac- 
tually locked up awaiting its decisions — equal to the value of 
the fee simple of the States in question, and all their moveables 
into the bargain — a sum more than sufficient to pay oflFthe whole 
National Debt of the United States several times over. Its ju- 
risdiction is of the most diffusive character, and it may be said 
to reach in some way, either directly or indirectly, the inte- 
rests or the sympathies of every individual in the community. 
As no Court presents so many temptations to indirect prac- 
tices, so there is no one in which they may be so readily veiled. 
A year's delay, to obtain which, might be an object of suffi- 
cient importance to warrant an enormous bribe, would scarcely 
excite even suspicion in a Court whose procrastinating tem- 
per is proverbial. There is no jury to participate in its labours, 
or to check an improper bias; nor do its proceedings possess 
that kind of popular interest which attracts to them the super- 
vision even of the readers of the newspapers. What is the te- 
nure by which this almost boundless pov(?er over the anxieties and 
the interests of the Community is held? The will of the Mi- 
nister of the day. His breath can make or unmake the Lord 
Chancellor. A Premier would instantly resign if his declared 
wish for the removal of this officer should be disregarded. Such 
a refusal would be considered as depriving him of an authority 
essential to the discipline of the Cabinet, and to that concert and 
cordiality on which the success of its measures must so greati}'- 
depend. When it is recollected that within the brief space of 
nine months, there stood at the head of affairs in Great Britain, 
four different individuals in succession, (Lord Liverpool, Mr. 
Canning, Lord Goderich, the Duke of Wellington,) it will rea- 
dily be conceded that the Chancellor can never consider himself 
as altogether safe, since he is liable to be sacrificed, not merely 
to any particular scheme of policy, which he is accused of thwart- 
ing, but even to those impulses of temper, on the one side or 



23 

the other, through which Mr. Huskisson ceased to be a Minis- 
ter. It seems to be universally agreed that Lord Lyndhurst 
must have gone out, as the ,\tforney-general did, had he not 
voted for the Relief Bill of Last Session. 

If we look back to the history of this Court we shall see 
plainly what has been the practical consequence of this state of 
things. The mind involuntarily turns to Lord Bacon; the 
"greatest wisest" of mankind, he became Lord Chancellor only 
to furnish to the poet a sad antithesis to these epithets. There 
is no where to be found a more mortifying rebuke to the pride 
of human nature than is furnished in vvitnessing the influence of 
circumstances over a mind so wholly without a parallel in mo- 
dern times, whether we refer to original power and compass, or 
to extent of acquirement. His appointment, as appears by his 
own letters, was brought about by Buckingham, the "favourite 
of King James. The abject subjection in which he was held is 
thus stated by his biographer Mallet. *' During the king's ab- 
sence in Scotland, there happened an aflfair, otherwise of small 
importance, but as it lets us into the true genius of those ^imes, 
and serves to show in what miserable subjection the Favourite 
held all those who were in public employments. He was on 
the point of ruining Sir Francis Bacon, the person he had just 
contributed to raise; not for any error or negligence in their 
master's service, but merely for an opinion given in a thing that 
only regarded his own family. Indeed such was his levity, such 
the insolence of his power, that the capricious removal of men 
from their places became the prime distinction of his thirteen 
years' favour, which, as Bishop Hacket observes, was like a 
sweeping flood that at every spring-tide takes from one land to 
cast what it has taken upon another." And again, " Nor even 
thus did he presently regain his credit with Buckingham; the 
family continued to load him with reproaches: and he remained 
long under that agony of heart which an aspiring inan tnust 
feel, when his power and dignity are at the mercy of a king's 
minion, young and giddy with his elevation. They were, how- 
ever, reconciled at last; and their friendship, if obsequiousness 
in one, to all the humours of the other, deserves the name of 
friendship, continued without interruption for some years; while 
Buckingham went on daily to place and displace the great Offi- 
cers of the Crown, as wantonness of fancy, or anger, or inte- 
rest led him; to recommend or discountenance every private 
person, who hnd a suit depending in any court just as he 
was influenced; to authorize and protect every illegal project 
that could sdTve most speedily to enrich himself or his kin- 
dred," &c. 

At length his bribery and venality became so flagrant and no- 
torious, that it was found necessary to put him aside. 

What brought about the dismisfal of Lord Clarendon from 



24 

the same high office? We are told that the gravity of his de- 
portment *' struck a very unpleasing awe into a court filled with 
licentious persons of both sexes;" certain false suggestions were 
in consequence got up, which, "assisted by the solicitations of 
the lades of pleasure, made such impressions upon the king, 
that he at last gave way and became willing, and even pleased 
to part both from his person and services." (Chalmer's Biogra- 
phical Dictionary, art Hyde.) Pe/?y.s, Secretary to the Admi- 
ralty, in the reign of Charles 11. thus refers, in his Diary re- 
cently edited by Lord Braybrooke, to the same transaction. 
*' This day, Mr. Pierce, the Surgeon, was with me; and tells 
me how this business of my Lord Chancellor's was certainly 
designed in my Lidy Castlemaine's chamber; and that when he 
went from the king on Monday morning, she was in bed, 
(though about twelve o'clock,) and ran out in her smock into 
her aviary, looking into Whitehall Garden; and thither her wo- 
man brought her her night-gown; and stood blessing herself at 
the old man's going away." 

Clarendon's integrity could not be overcome. Had he proved 
weak as Lord Bacon, he would have been drawn into the same 
wretched thraldom to the male or femalo favourite of the hour. 
Influence, wherever lodged, would have been an object of dread; 
and the power of alarming the anxieties of the Chancellor have 
proved the best perquisite of the king's mistress. A magistrate 
thus debased would quickly come to understand that he might 
give as much offence by an honest decree as by the gravity of 
his deportment, and even should an exposure ultimately take 
place, it would be impossible to trace the taint of corruption 
through the vast and complicated business of the Court, much 
less to redress the mischief which had been done. 

Coming into the next century, we find Lord Chancellor the 
Earl of Macclesfield, disgraced for bribery and venality. 

The circumstances which, more recently led to the dismissal 
of Lord Camden are thus stated, by the Earl of Chatham, in 
his speech explanatory of the pension granted to that illustrious 
magistrate, prior to his appointment as Chancellor. (See Gen- 
tleman's Magazine for 1770, p. 104.) "I recommended him 
to be Chancellor, his public and private virtues were acknow- 
ledged by all; they made his situation more precarious. I 
could not reasonably expect from him that he should quit the 
Chief Justiceship of the Common Pleas which he held for life, 
and put himself in the power of those who were not to he 
trusted to be dis?nissed Jrom the Chancery perhaps the day 
after his appointment. The public has not been deceived by 
his conduct. My suspicions have been justified. His integri- 
ty has made him once more a poor and a private man; he 
was dismissed for the vote he gave in favour of the right of elec- 
tion in the subject." In the same volume, page 141, v,-ill be 



2j 

found " The Humble Address, Remonstrance and Petition of 
the Electors of the City and Liberty of Westminster, assem- 
bled in Westminster Hall, the 28th March, 1770," in which 
they say, " By the same secret and unhappy influence to 
ivhich all our grievances have been originally owing, the 
redress of those grievances has been now prevented; and the 
grievances themselves have been repeatedly confirmed with this 
additional circumstance of aggravation, that while the invaders 
of our rights remain the Directors of your Majesty'' s Coun- 
sels-, the defenders of those rights have been dismissed from 
your Majesty's service, your Majesty having been advised by 
your Ministers, to remove from his employment for his vote 
in Parliament the highest officer of the law, because his prin- 
ciples suited ill with theirs, and his piore distribution of jus- 
tice with their corrupt administration of it in the House of 
Commons." 

The reader's attention will not fail to be arrested by the cir- 
cumstance, that Lord Chatham deemed it necessary to fortify 
the Chancellor by a pension, on which he might honourably 
retire. The present incumbent is not thus sustained in the 
fearless discharge of his duty. To that extent, therefore, he 
is more anxiously dependent on the complacency of the Mi- 
nister. He may be turned back to the bar without any pro- 
vision whatever, and with all the disadvantages attending these 
Restorations to practice. His family may suddenly be de- 
prived of the means of living in affluence and splendour. It 
does not seem to be in human nature that such considerations 
should be without their influence on the question of adopting a 
coui'se acceptable or disagreeable to that stern Chief, in whose 
hands are all the issues of Wealth and Poverty. 

Whilst, therefore, the great Law officer of England sits at 
the Council board, and at the Banquet with the sword suspend- 
ed over his head by a single hair— whilst in the middle of a 
cause he may learn that his judicial 'functions are at an end — 
Captain Hall with a generous waiver of ail selfish considera- 
tions thinks only of the poor souls on the other side of the At- 
lantic. 

" Wo, wo for Indiana, not a whit for me!" 

His sympathies are on a Mission to the Ohio, to awaken peo- 
ple there to a sense of their perilous condition, whilst his own 
brethren are left unheeded behind. He dreads lest in the Legis- 
lature of some one of the states composed of men, " who have 
come straight from the plough, or from behind the counter, 
from chopping down trees, or from the bar," corruption may be 
found. He has no fear of the abuse of power by an indivi- 
dual. 

But however ignorant Captain Hall may be of the Institu- 

4 



tions of England, he spurns the idea of not having made him- 
self completely master of those of the United States. He de- 
clares that there is "less complication in their political systems 
than in those of almost any other country. One or two very 
obvious principles appear, by their own showing to regulate 
the whole matter; and these, after a time, are easily under- 
stood." The reader may wonder how he happens to be be- 
trayed into this eulogium. It is only to enable him to vent a 
sarcasm. "With the Americans, on the contrary, there is al- 
ways a solemn sort of enigmatical assumption of the intricacy 
and transcendant grandeur of their whole system not to be com- 
prehended by weak European minds." But no matter; for the 
sake of the compliment we let the sneer pass, and proceed to 
examine how far he has manifested this familiar knowledge, 
when, abandoning mere invective, he has descended to parti- 
culars. 

We may premise that in our opinion, the whole solieme is so 
readily intelligible that it is very difficult to fall into a mistake. 
Thus Paley in his Moral and Political Philosophy, has given, 
in a few words^, a sufficiently distinct view of the functions of 
the general Government. Speaking of the inconvenience of a 
Democracy in a country of great extent, he remarks: "Much 
of the difficulty seems to be done away by the contrivance qf a 
Federal Republic, which distributing the country into districts 
of commodious extent, and leaving to each district its inter- 
nal legislation, reserves to a convention of the States the ad- 
justment of their relative claims; the levying, direction and go- 
vernment of the common force of the confederacy; the making 
of peace and war; the entering into treaties; the regulation of fo- 
reign commerce; the equalization of duties upon imports,' &c. " 

Such then is the simple theory. Amongst those matters of 
"internal legislation," which have no reference to the appropri- 
ate functions of a general Government, as thus sketched, is that 
of the rule which shall govern the distribution of property, real 
and personal, in cases of intestacy. A power to meddle with such 
a subject would be quite aside from any duty the Federal Head 
has to perform, and it has been accordingly reserved to the seve- 
ral States. What then, will the reader think of Captain Hall's 
success in mastering the " one or two very obvious principles 
which regulate the whole matter," when, in speaking of Mr. 
Jefferson's elevation to the Presidency in the year 1801, he in- 
dulges in the following strain, (vol. 2. p. 317.) "Mr. Jeffer- 
son succeeded, and, as he was himself devoted to the cause of 
Democracy, it made great strides under the hearty encourage- 
ment of his eight years' administration. The Laiv of PrimO' 
geniture teas abolished, and various other acts passed, all tend^ 
ing the same ivay." 

May we not ask if it be not almost too severe a trial of our 



27- 

patience, to be obliged to notice such trash? The Law of Pri- 
mogeniture! The reader must be aware that Congress and the 
President, had no more control over such a subject, than had 
Captain Hall himself. It was entirely out of their sphere of 
action. And yet we have a strain of invective running through 
these volumes at an alleged series of acts, tending to pervert 
the original character of the Government, and evidencing a 
wish to see every thing prostrated before that " popular deluge 
which threatens to obliterate so much, that, in former days, 
was considered great and ^ooc? in their country.'' How must 
every Briton blush to find an Officer of his Country circulating 
a statement not only unfounded, but quite preposterous — for 
the reason already given, that had Mr. Jefferson's temper been 
ever so levelling, both he and Congress, were utterly power- 
less to effect any such change? 

The present may perhaps be, as fit a place as any other to no- 
tice the remarks which are profusely scattered through these 
volumes on this subject of the distribution of property in cases 
of intestacy. 

We have thought that the greatest sum of happiness is most 
likely to be attained, not by the accumulation of unwieldy 
wealth in the hands of a few, but by the diffusion, so far as pos- 
sible, of the comforts and enjoyments of life, as far so that ob- 
ject can be attained under the operation of a steady system of 
laws, and with the complete security of property. The rule 
of primogeniture seems to be at variance with his theory. It 
is true, the disproportioned fortunes to which it leads, might 
hot always prove either pernicious or useless; and instances 
may be pointed out, in our own country, of the graceful and 
advantageous employment of that superfluity which circum- 
stances had placed at the disposal of enlightened and public 
spirited individuals. But it has pleased us, on the whole, to 
think that the absence of a few munificent patrons of the Fine 
Arts, is sufficiently compensated by a state of things which, 
whilst it is calculated to cherish sentiments appropriate to our 
Institutions, places within the reach of every one the means of 
education, and of an honourable and independent subsistence. 
Captain Hall professes a feeling of reverence for the memory 
of Dr. Franklin, *' dear old Franklin," as he is afiectionately 
styled. We might have hoped that an admirer so earnest, and 
doubtless so sincere, would not have over-looked an opinion 
which that philosopher and patriot has repeatedly inculcated on 
us, and which he thus declares in a letter to Granville Sharp in 
the year 1786. 

*' I am perfectly of your opinion, with respect to the salu- 
tary law of Gavelkind, and hope it may in time be established 
throughout America. In six of the Sates already, the lands 
of intestates are divided equally among the children, if all 



2B 

girls; but there is a double share to be given to the eldest son, 
for which I see no more reason than in giving; such share to the el- 
dest daughter; and think there should be no such distinction.'' 

And again in his remarks to emigrants, in July, 1784, he says: 
"It is rather a general, happy, mediocrity that prevails. There 
are few great proprietors of the soil, and few tenants; most peo- 
ple cultivate their own lands, or follow some handicraft or mer- 
chandise; very few rich enough to live idly upon their rents 
or incomes, or to pay the high prices given in Europe for paint- 
ings, statues, and the other works of art. " 

Now it unfortunately happens, that Captain Hall, though he is 
found, at one place, quoting with seeming enthusiasm, " Sweet 
Auburn," yet appears to have looked round with disgust, be- 
cause he discovered none of those appearances which the poet 
regards as symptoms of a decaying land. 

" But verging to decline its splendours rise. 
Its vistas strike, its pajaccs sui'prise, 
JV?iile scourged by Famine from the smiling land, 
The mournful peasant leads his humble band." 

-" the man of wealth and pride 



Takes up a space that many poor supplied; 
Space for his lake, his parks extended bounds, 
Space for his houses, .equipage, and hounds." 

It is for these things that Captain Hall is heard to sigh, and 
he turns with contempt from the substantial blessings which 
he saw every where around him.. 

"The land," he says, "on the left bank of the Hudson, 
for a considerable distance above New York, were formerly 
held by great proprietors, and chiefly by the Livingstone fami- 
ly; but the abolition of entails, and the repeal of the law of 
primogeniture, has already broken it down into small portions. 
Our host, at the time of our visit, possessed only the third of 
the property held by his immediate predecessor, while the 
Manor of Livingstone, an extensive and fertile district farther 
up the river, formerly owned by one person, is now divided 
into forty or fifty parcels, belonging to as many different pro- 
prietors; so that where half a dozen landlords once lived, as., 
many hundreds may now be counted. And as these new posses- 
sors clear away and cultivate the soil at a great rate, the popu- 
lation goes on svyelling rapidly, though we were told not by 
any means so fast as it does in the wild regions of the west. 
This comparative tardiness may possibly be caused by some 
lingerings of the old aristocratical feeling; though it is mixed 
up curiously enough with the modeim ideas oi the equal divi- 
sion of property, the universality of electoral suffrage, equali- 
ty of popular rights and privileges, and all the other trans- 
atlantic devices for the improvement of society. 

"By law, indeed, any man in America may leave his pro- 



*29 

perty to whom he pleases, or lie may even entail it, exactly as 
in England, upon persons living at the time; yet the general 
sentiment of the public is so decidedly against such unequal 
distributions, that in practice such a thing very rarely^ if ever, 
takes place. Consequently there is no check to this deteriora- 
ting process, which is rapidly reducing that portion of the 
country to the same level in respect to property, with those re- 
cently settled districts where entails and the right of promoge- 
niture never did exist, and are hardly known even by name; 
or if spoken of at all, it is with the utmost contempt and hor- 
ror." Elsewhere again he adverts to the evils which have 
arisen since the law of primogeniture, and the practice of en- 
tails were swept away by the tide of modern iniprovet7ienf, 
as it is called. From these and other causes the accumulation 
of large properties has been entirely prevented, even in that 
State where the value oj" these unequal divisions of property 
is certainly better known than any where else in the country 
(Virginia.) Unfortunately this conviction is confined to the 
minority," (vol. 3. p. 80.) And again we have a laraenta|ion 
over that more equal division of property, which has be^n 
caused by what Captain Hall is pleased to call '^ the blighting 
tempest of Democracy." 

At the hazard of appearing very presumptuous, we must 
\'enture to dissent from his opinion, that the abolition of pri- 
mogeniture is a modern American improvement. The truth 
is, that the establishment of that practice in England is a, badge 
of subjection to the Norman Conqueror, as will be found on 
looking into the matter a little more closely. De Lolme in 
his work on the English Constitution, speaks of *' fragments 
of the ancient Saxon law^, escaped from the disaster of the 
Conquest, such as that called Gavelkind in Kent, by vvhich 
lands are divided equally between the sons." Blackstone in 
his Commentaries (vol. 2. p. 84,) says, " A pregnant proof 
that these liberties of socage tenure were fragments of Saxon 
Liberty. The nature of the tenure of Gavelkind affords us a 
still stronger argument. It is universally known what strug- 
gles the Kentish men made to preserve their ancient liberties, 
and with how much success these struggles were attended. 
And as it is principally here that we meet with the custom of 
Gavelkind, (though it was, and is to be found in some other 
parts of the kingdom,) we may fairly conclude that this was a 
part of those liberties; agreeably to Mr. Seldon's opinion, that 
Gavelkind before the Norman Conquest wa,s the general cus- 
tom of the realm," Seldon's words are, " Cantianis solum in- 
tegra et inviolata remansit." Blackstone further remarks, p. 
214. "The Greeks, the Romans, the Britons, the Saxons, 
and even originally the feudists divided the lands equally; some 
among all the children at large, some among the males only." 



30 

Por military purposes primogeniture was introduced, ** And 
in this condition the feudal Constitution was established in En- 
gland, by William the Conqueror." (lb.) 

One of the oldest and most esteemed writers on the Laws of 
England, Lambarde, in a work called " A Perambulation of 
Kent, containing the Description, Hystorie and Customs of that 
Shyre, written in the year 1570," after describing the division 
into Shires, by Alfred the Great, remarks, " In this plight, 
therefore, both this Shyre of Kent, and all the residue of the 
Shyres of this Realme were found, when William the Duke of 
Normandie invaded this Realme; at whose hands the Common- 
ality of Kent obtained with great honour, the continuation of 
their ancient usages, notwithstanding that the whole Realme 
besides suffered alteration and change." He adds, '' I gather 
from Cornelius Tacitus and others, that the ancient Germans, 
(whose offspring we be,) suffered their lands to descende not to 
the eldest Sonne alone, but to the whole number of their male 
children, and I find in the 57th chapter of Canutus' lawe, (a 
King of the Realme before the Conquest,) that after the death 
of the father, his heirs should divide both his goods and his 
lands amongst them." Referring more particularly to Kent, 
he says, " Neither be they heere so much bounden to the Gen- 
trie by Copyhold, or customarie tenures as the inhabitants of 
the Western counties of the Realme be, nor at all endangered 
by the feeble holde of tenant-right, (which is but a discent of a 
tenancie at will,) as the common people in the Northern parts 
be; for copyhold tenure is rare in Kent, and tenant-right not 
heard of at all: but in place of these the custom of Gavelkind 
prevailing every where, in manner, every man is a Freehold- 
er, and hath some part of his own to live upon. And in this 
their estate they please themselves and joy exceedingly, inso- 
much as a man may finde sundry Yeomen, (although otherwise 
for wealth comparable with many of the gentle sort) that will 
not yet for all that change their condition, nor desire to be ap- 
parailed with the title of Gentrie. Neither is this any cause 
of disdain, or of alienation of the good minds of the one sort 
from the other, for no where else in all the realme is the com- 
mon people more willingly governed. To be short, they be 
most commonly civil, just and bountiful, so that the estate of 
the Old Franklins and Yeoman of England, either yet liveth 
in Kent, or else it is quite dead, and departed out of the realme 
for altogether." 

Thus matters stood in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In the 
introduction to Mr. Hasted's magnificent work, The History 
of Kent, in four quarto volumes, the publication of which, 
was begun in 1778, and ended in 1799, we find the following 
remarks. " From the freedom of its tenures and customs the 
lands throughout the county are shared by almost every house- 



31 

keeper in it; by which means the great are restrained from 
possessing such a vast extent of dominions as might prompt 
them to exercise tyranny over their inferiors; and every one's 
possessions being intermixed, there arises an unavoidable chain 
of interests between them, which entitles both one and the 
other to mutual obligations and civilities. In this county there 
are very few, if any, such scenes of misery and wretchedness 
to be seen amongst the poor, as there are in many parts of En- 
gland. Instead of which, a comfortable subsistence and cheer- 
ful content is found in most of the meanest cottages." 

On the subject of Entails, we must refer our tourist to the 
second volume of Blackstone, p. 116. 

" Thus much for the nature of Estate Tail, the establish- 
ment of vf\i\ch family law (as it is properly styled by Pigott,) 
occasioned infinite difficulties ?ind disputes. Children grew 
disobedient when they knew they could not be set aside; farm- 
ers were ousted of their leases made by tenants in tail; for if 
such leases had been valid, then, under colour of long leases, 
the issue might have been virtually disinherited: creditors were 
defrauded of their debts, for if a tenant in tail could have 
charged his estate with this payment, he might also have de- 
feated his issue by mortgaging it for as much as it was worth," 
&c. '' So that they were justly branded as the source of new 
contentions, and mischiefs unknown to the Common Law; and 
almost universally considered as the common grievance of the. 
realm. But as the nobility were always fond of this statute, 
because it preserved their family estates from forfeiture, there 
was little hope of procuring a repeal by the legislature; and, 
therefore, by the contrivance of an active and politic prince, 
a method was devised to evade it." 

As the Captain's rambling habits have probably kept him in 
ignorance of what is goirg on in his own country, we would 
invite his attention to the first and second Reports of the Se- 
lect Committee of the House of Commons "on the subject of 
Scotch Entails," published in 1828. If these very admirable 
productions should be too voluminous for his perusal, he may 
be obliged to us for the following extract, from a review of 
them and other publications, on the same subject, in the Scot's 
Law Chronicle, for May 1829, page xi. " Since the Act 1685, 
intituled, 'An Act concerning tailzies,' was passed there never 
was a measure of greater importance to the people of Scotland 
brought under the consideration of Parliament, and from the 
titles of the publications prefixed to this article, it will be ob- 
served, the subject has occupied much attention, and been very 
generally considered in Scotland. To Mr. Kennedy and the 
Select Committee of the House of Commons, the people of 
Scotland owe a debt of gratitude. The two Reports contain 
such a body of evidence, that it cannot be shaken by igno^- 



32 

ranee, prejudice, or the ill-digested views or apprehensions 
unfounded, as we have no doubt, of interested individuals. 

" The evils of entails being now completely proved, it is 
impossible to doubt that the legislature must provide a speedy 
remedy, both for the interest of heirs of entail, and the public 
at large. In the bill originally introduced into Parliament, by 
Mr. Kennedy, it was proposed to allow the nobility of England 
and Scotland to continue to entail to a certain extent. This, if 
we recollect right, Mr. Kennedy stated in his place, was 
meant as a matter of expediency, in order to promote the suc- 
cess of the bill in the House of Peers. It had occurred to al- 
most every person who had considered the evils arising from 
entails, that the only obstacle which might prevent Parliament 
from remedying them, would be found in the prejudices of the 
nobility, the only class supposed to be hostile to any change 
of the law of entail, as the preservation of their families was 
imagined to depend on entails. Mr. Sandford, in his evidence, 
says he heard it stated that * an .opinion was entertained by a 
high authority, that if the majorat was allowed, a bill for the 
modification of entails would be permitted.' 

" If the power of thus entailing had been allowed to the En- 
glish, Irish, and Scotch nobility, it is too obvious to admit of 
doubt, that the whole unentailed land in Scotland might soon 
have been purchased up by them, and placed under the fetters 
bf strict entail, by which Scotland, like Ireland, loould have 
been cursed with all the evils of absentee proprietors. The 
evidence on this point has been thoroughly *^y)?eG? by the Select 
Committee, and is so overwhelming, that it is impossible to 
persevere longer in the clause allowing the nobility the exclusive 
power of entailing to a greater extent than other landed propri- 
etors. Several noblemen were examined by the Committee, 
and they, to their honour and credit, disclaim any wish to ob- 
tain for the nobility such an invidious distinction. The evils of 
entails have, in fact, been fully as much felt by the nobility 
as any other class of entailed proprietors. We are glad, there- 
fore, to observe, from the resolutions of the Select Committee, 
the clause in favour of the nobility is completely abandoned. 

"By the evidence in the two Reports of the Select Commit- 
tee of the House of Commons it is conclusively py^oved, 

" I. That the Act of 10th Geo. III., c. 51, giving power to 
burden estates to the extent of four years' rent for improvements 
on entailed estates, has been productive of little or no benefit 

"2. That Lord Aberdeen's Act, 5th Geo. IV., c. S7, by 
which heirs of entail may grant provisions to younger chil- 
dren, and burden the estate to an amount not exceeding three 
years' rent, and an annuity to their wives, to an extent not ex- 
ceeding one-third part of the rents, may lead to the embarrass- 
ment of heirs of entail. 



33 

'' 3. That the combined efiect of these Acts is to burden the 
entailed estate to the extent of nine years' rent, or one-third of 
the fee-simple vakie of the entire estate, by which the heir may 
be deprived of two-thirds of the rents, in order to liquidate 
the charges so authorized to be imposed, subject to the burden 
of collecting the rents, and managing the whole estate. 

"4. That entailed proprietors are also liable to contribute to 
the expense of turnpike roads, canals, building and repairing 
churches, and other public improvements. 

• "5. That the evils of entails are the exclusion of so much land 
from commerce, the defrauding of shopkeepers and others who 
give credit to heirs of entail in possession, for which the former 
cannot obtain heritable security, nor attach the estate, and that 
heirs of entail, not having the power of sale, or burdening thie 
estate for borrowed money, cannot obtain the means either 
to make improvetnents, or pay debts and family provisions. ^^ 

These considerations will, it is hoped, have due weight with 
the people of America before they yield to Captain Hall's sug- 
gestion, and abandon a system which has grown up under the 
sanction of the founders of the Republic. 

Thus much for our tourist's familiarity with the functions of 
the Executive Department of the Government. His criticism 
on the Legislature is principally drawn from a Debate, part 
of which he witnessed, in the Senate of the United States, re- 
ktive to a proposition to abolish Imprisonment for Debt. This 
subject must, everywhere, supply abundant materials for contro- 
versy; but in order to understand some of its peculiar bearings, 
on this occasion, a brief explanation ma}' be necessary:— From 
the scheme of government which has already been .adverted to, 
it may be supposed that the judicial power of the Federal Head 
bears a close analogy to its political functions. The primary- 
purpose was to create a tribunal to which the government might 
itself resort, without exposure to the jealousies of the Local 
Courts. Whilst, however, this object was duly attended to, the 
framers of the Constitution enlarged their view to a provision 
for other cases, in which it was apprehended that a narrowness 
of feeling might interfere with the pure and unsuspected admi- 
nistration of justice. Hence is found a clause giving to the Na- 
tional Courts jurisdiction over cases affecting ambassadors, &c., 
and, without going into needless detail, it may be stated, that to 
every alien was secured the privilege of suing, and of being 
sued, in these Courts. It is not obligatory on him to do this. 
He may sue there, or in the State Courts, and if sued in a State 
Court, he may either remove the case into the National Court, 
or waive his privilege. The option is with him; his antagonist 
has no such option. 

It is to be understood that the National Courts do not adminis- 
ter a different law from that of the States in which they are 



. 34 

held. They arc bound by that law. The object in view is to 
secure an impartial administration of it, through judges who 
do not derive their appointment from the State, and who are 
presumed to be comparatively free from local sympathy or pre- 
judice. A recurrence to the theory under which, as the judge is 
aware, this duty devolves on him, must have a tendency to 
render him peculiarly solicitous that the provision should not, 
in his person, be unavailing to secure the strictest impartiality. 
As this is a peculiar and very amiable feature in our jurispru- 
dence, it is not regretted that a fair opportunity has been afford- 
ed of adverting to it. But although the laws of the several 
States furnish "rules of decision" for the National Courts, a dis- 
tinction may, and frequently does, exist as to the means of en- 
forcing a judgment when obtained. The Act of Congress of 
1789, by which the National Courts are established, declares 
that their pi'ocess shall be the same as that then used in the re- 
spective State Courts. After this adoption, however, it was 
not liable to fluctuate with any change which might subse- 
quently take place in any of the States. It could be modified 
only by an act of congress. Thus wherever the right of taking 
the debtor's body existed in 1789, the right remained to the 
creditors, suing.in the National Courts, although intermediately 
the local legislatures had taken away this power altogether from 
their own Courts, or had fettered the exercise of it. 

It will be readily understood how important this distinction 
has, in many cases, proved to a foreign creditor, placing him as 
it does, beyond the reach of any of those expedients to which a 
State Legislature may be driven, at moments of great pressure, 
in order to r-elieve the embarrassed debtor. 

On the proposition then, to abolish Imprisonment for Debt, 
it is obvious that many of the arguments, on both sides, would 
have a reference to this peculiar state of things. Congress 
could not regulate the process of State Courts, so that in many 
of them the power over the body would remain. Thus then, 
after foreigners had been allured into the National Court by the 
avowed policy of the Constitution — after having shrunk from 
the State Courts on a suspicion inspired by that instrument — • 
they would find themselves disarmed of a power, which, in 
controversies between citizen and citizen, was seen in many cases 
to be the only effectual method of extracting the latent resources 
of a debtor. That such considerations ought to be decisive is 
not pretended; that they would find their way into the discus- 
sion must be obvious. Now, it is in reference to this debate, 
that Captain Hall has formed his opinion as to the tedious, wire- 
drawn character of our legislative proceedings. " On r)iany a 
subsequent day, when I visited the Senate, I found this old 
thread-bare, six years subject, still under discussion, without its 
even appearing to advance one inch. " And after a great deal 



3r> 

of sneering, he drops by mere chance, the following remark. 
'^' The object of the measure, if I understood it properly^ was 
to limit the operation of the principle to cases falling under 
the jurisdiction of the United States Courts, was not meant 
to apply to those of the particular States." Now we put it to 
the reader, whether it is possible that such language could fall 
from one who had listenecl attentively to the debate, or who was 
at all acquainted with our simple theory of government? He is 
in doubt whether Congress ^^meant'^ to abolish Imprisonment 
for Debt, so far as depended on the process of the State Courts. 
Could he have been aware of its total want of power to do so? 
The doubtful manner in which he speaks of the " object" of the 
bill, shows that he could not have comprehended the bearings 
of the subject. Thus, then, has the Senate of the United 
States been condemned! Our impatient Captain just pops in 
for a minute or two — seats himself with " an air of intelligent 
and critical importance," like his countryman, Andrew Fair- 
service, at the Minster, in Glasgow — subjects every thing 
to a rapid analysis — is wearied — hastens somewhere else— 
and v/hen he returns and raids the same *' thread-bare" sub- 
ject under consideration, expresses himself very much like a 
servant at one of our colleges who, stepping in and out during 
a demonstration in Euclid, wondered that such large boys were 
still at their A B's and C D's. 

Passing from the general Government, Captain Hall proceeds 
to subject the several States to his rebuke, and he selects Penn- 
sylvania, " because it is eminently democratic, and has been 
called, par excellence, the keystone of the Republican arch." 

In this unhappy commonwealth he was particularly shocked 
at a discovery in reference to judicial proceedings, which he 
announces in the following terms: — 

"The law renders it imperative on the Judge to charge the Jmy, on any 
points of law which either party may requu-e. Sometimes each party will in- 
sist upon the Judge chai-ging- the Jury upon twenty or thirty points. Then ex- 
ceptions to the charge follow, and thus an endless source of delay and fresh li- 
tigation is opened up." 

He might have learned, by consulting any English lawyer, or 
looking into Blackstone, that the right of excepting to the opi- 
nion of a Court on points fairly arising out of the case, exists in 
England, just as it does in Pennsylvania. Such a right is, in- 
deed, manifestly indispensable to enable a party to take the opi- 
nion of a higher tribunal. To say that counsel have a right to 
demand the opinion of the Court on '' any" point, is plainly ab- 
surd, as a defendant, anxious for delay, might require the whole 
of Blackstonc's Commentaries" to be gone through. The limit is 
the obvious one of questions pertinent to the issue, and it is not 
only the right, but the duty of the judge, to refuse to notice 
whatever is irrelevant — the ground of such refusal, being, howe- 



36 

ver, open to review. The multiplication of material points 
must always depend on the learning and ingenuity of the coun- 
sel. 

The only difference in this respect, in the two countries, is 
the following: By the law of Pennsylvania, a party may either 
resort to a bill of ttxreptions, on particular points, or he may re- 
quire that the opinion of the Court shall be reduced to writing, 
and filed of record. Where it is apprehended that the judge may, 
on more mature reflection, be inclined to doubt the accuracy of 
what has fallen from him, and to soften or disguise its force, 
this power in the hands of counsel is a very useful one. 

It happens, indeed, singularly enough, that the very first pro- 
ceedings which we witnessed at Westminster Hall, placed in a 
very strong point of view the advantage of enabling counsel 
thus to guard the interests of their clients. It was a motion 
for a new trial, in a case which had been tried before the Chief 
Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, relative to two barges, 
of no great value. There is a report of what took place in the 
Times of 22nd November, 1828. . The Court had intimated an 
opinion that the rule should be made absolute, or, as the report- 
er more correctly represents the scene, endeavoured to per- 
suade the learned Serjeant to forbear from opposing the rule.-" 
What subsequently occurred is thus taken, verbatim, from the 
Times, and we can vouch for the accuracy of the report. 

" Mr. Serjeant WtMe repeated his wish to go on with the case now, but add- 
ed, that if Uieir Lordships had read tlie evidence of the witnesses, and had al- 
ready come to a coiulusion ujDon the case, which tliey tliought could not be al- 
tered by argument, he would of course abstain from entering into any, but at 
the same time he confessed, that he thought, if the court wmdd listen to what he 
really /e/^ it his duty to urge in justice to his client, they would be of opinion 
that the verdict was coirect, and ought not to be dlstuibed. 

Mr. Justice Park. After what you have now said, I, foi- one, desire that you 
wiU go on. 

The other Judges. Go on. 

The learned Serjeant then proceeded in his argument, in the comse of which 
he V!d.s frequently irderrtipied by the Court, who appeared dissatisfied by his ap- 
parent obstinacy. Before he concluded, he stated, that the Lord Chief Justice 
had left the case to Uie Jury as a fraudulent preference. 

The Liord Chief Justice. Brother Wilde, be correct in jour statement. You 
have already said, several times, that it was left as a fraudulent preference; / 
have as often said, that I left it as u fi audulent transfer. 

Mr. Sejjeant Wilde. My Lord, / must repeat that it was left as a fraudulent 
preference. ~ 

T/ie Lord Chief Justice. I have already stated to you what my recollection is 
upon the subject, and as that recollection is confirmed by the statement on the 
other side, Tsay plainly, when you assert tliat it was left as a fraudulent prefe- 
ferencc, I don't beleve it. 

Mr. Serjeant Wilde. That is undoubtedly a strong* expression, my Loixl; and 
as your Lordship lias been pleased to state yom- recollection of what occiUTcd 
so decidedly, I, of course, am bound to yiefd to it; but I diallenge ajiy one of the 
learned gentlemen to state, either from note or tlieir own rnenwry, that tlie case 
was left as a fraudulent transfer. Let them say thut it was so, if they diu'e, and 
tdtce the disgrace that would full upon them for the assertion. 

The other judges here interfered to conciliate, and expressed an opinion that 



the learned Serjeaiitwas acting and speaking with greater V'ai'mth than became 
hun. 

Mr. Serjeant Wilde: My Lords, I should be very sorr}^to conduct myself witli 
such warmth, us to be offensive to the coui-t, but when I am told by my Lord 
Chief Justice, that he does not believe me, 1 confess it is an expression which I 
cannot submit to, and must repel. ^- 

The court again interposed, when the learned Serjeant said, he tliought he 
had said nothing which could he. interpreted into disrespect to the bench. 

Their lordships, however, were of a contraiy opinion, and said, tliat they cer- 
tainly tlioug'ht he made use of expressions which were exceedingly offensive 
to the bench, and which tliey xlid.not doubt the learned Serjeant would hav«; 
abstained from utterinef in a cooler moment. 

The Lord Chief Justice said, that he certainly thpug'ht the learned Serjeant 
had behaved very disrenpectfu 11 y to him, for he said, tliat he (the Chief Justice) 
in his charge had suppressed facts which were favourable to liJs client, and that 
he had made strong" comments in favour of the defendant. This, he repeated, 
he kVi personally offensive to himself, as it conxe-\^ed' an impulation oft most se- 
rious nature against a Judge. He wished that the learned Serjeant would ad- 
dress the same language to him, sitdng on that bench, that wo'idd be used between 
gentleman and gentleman hi a private room. On the contrary, he liad this day 
addi-essed language to him which might, perhaps, be used in the company which 
the learned titrjeant frequented, but which, he begged to add, was unknown in 
llie society in which he (the Cliief Xustice,) moved. 

Mr. Serjeant Wilde denied that he had made use of the word " suppress," 
and repeated liis conviction that he had said nothing disi-espectful to tlie bench, 
or that might not liave been uttered in any society ivhatever. 

Mr. Justice Gaselee said, lie was sorry to say that he really did tliink the 
conduct of the learned Serjeant had been disrespectful. He had challenged 
the learned gentlemen on the oth<;r side to contradict, &c. &c. 

The Lord Chief Justice then said, if the learned Serjeant had not made use of 
the precise word " suppress," he had at least made use of others, by which the 
same inference Avould be drawn. His Lordship then requested the counsel 
for the defendants to say, whether the case had not been left as a fi-audulent 
transfer. 

Mr. Serjeant Cross said, that it certainly appeared so, by the note of the 
learned gentleman, who was with him in the cause. 

Mr. Serjeant Wilde insisted, that although the word " transfer" might have 
been used, it was followed by others, by which the question of j«'cicrence was 
fully put to tlie jury. 

?%e Lord Chief Justice again asserted, that he had not left that question to the 
juiT, and after some farther observations from the other judges, who once 7nore in- 
terfered to conciliate, tlie matter was dropped, and the learned Serjeant then pro- 
ceeded in his ai-gument. 

3Ir. Serjeant Andrews followed on the same side. 

Mr. Serjeant Cross was about to reply, but was prevented by 

Mr. Justice Park, who said that the court thought it un^iecessary to hear him, 
as it had already determined that the rule should be made absolute upon pay- 
ment of costs. 

Mr. Serjeant Cross begged, he. . 

Mr. Justice Park said, &c. 

Mr. Serjeant Cross, however, repeated his entreaty, to be allowed to address 
the court, and after some farthtr contention he was allowed to proceed. I'he 
learned Serjeant then went into a long speech, in which he complained, that Mr. 
Serjeant Wdde, at the trial, had made use of expressions /or the purposes of 
witltdrawing the wnjidence of the jury from the opinion of the Lord Chief Just 
lice, &c." 

Seeing the pugnacious Serjeant Wilde preparing again to 
start to his feet, we left the Court. It is obvious that the whole 
of this abominable waste of time, and disgraceful wrangling, 
would have been avoid-^d if a written note of the charge had 
been filed at the time, for the inspection of the counsel. No 



38 

ohe.couid then doubt whether the judge had left the case to the 
jury, as a fraudulent transfer, or a fraudulent- preference. 

It will have been seen that the judges considered the Ser- 
jeant as ^^ acting^' and speaking with greater warmth than be- 
came him. The report contains no account of the " acting," 
but most certainly Mr. Wilde fully madfe out his claim to wh^t 
the great master of oratory considered the sum of the art. 

We could not for our lives perceive any of that magical in- 
fluence which .Captain Hall attributes to the cumbrous appen- 
dages worn by the English judges. At p. 34 of his first vo- 
lume, he shakes his head in a. ver}'' foreboding manner, after 
having visited one of the Courts in New York. " The absence; 
of the»wigs and gdwhs took away much more from their dig- 
nity than I had previously supposed possible. Perhaps I was 
the more struck with this omission, as it was the fit^st thing I 
saw which made 7ne distrust,^^ &c. &c. Had he witnessed 
the foregoing scene in Westminster Hall, his faith might have 
been shaken. In the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, 
whirlwind of their passion, these wigs begat no temperance to 
give it smoothness, but rather showed like the white caps of 
the agitated billows "curling their monstrous heads." One 
almost felt alarmed at the facility with which they might be 
converted into missiles (furor arma ministrat,) and recognised 
all the wisdom of the precaution adopted at some of the lower 
Irish taverns of chaining up the poker. 

What would Captain Hall have written about such a scene 
had he witnessed it, in any part of the back-woods of America ? 

It is unnecessary to inform the English reader that " Bro- 
ther Wilde" is a respectable member of the profession, and 
that his being twitted by the Lord Chief Justice about the low 
company he kept, was probably a mere form of sarcasm, having 
no well founded reference to his habits or associations.- 

Having adverted to the subject of wigs, we cannot forbear 
directing Captain Hall's attention to the following heretical 
passage in the Edinburgh Law Chronicle, for November 1829. 

" It is said, that soon after Mr. JeiFrey's elcTation ta the deanship, a friend 
went up to him and wished him joy, "I am much obhged to you," was the 
reply, " and 1 hope it will come, but at present (applyins"' his hand to his 
wig to ease his head a little,) 1 am ver}- miserable." M'e desire to be thankful 
for two things, first, that the Dean of the Advocates of the College of Justice 
was so miserable, as he was under all the bar-wigs that have yet been tried on 
him; and secondly, that his Honour retained coin-age and fortitude enough to 
express his misery, and io doff them all. We have no tonsura ckricaUs now tf) 
Iiide; why then act as if we had '" 

This in Edinburgh under the eyes of Captain Hall ! 

He informs us, further, in reference to the judicial establish- 
ment of this State; "I was greatly surprised to hear that in 
Pennsylvania alone there are upwards of one hundred judges 
who preside on" the bench." He adds: "It is a curious feature 



39 

in the American Judicial System that in many of the States- 
Pennsylvania amongst others — the bench is composed of one 
judge, who is a lawyer, and of two others, who are not law- 
yers, called associate jxidves. Tiiese men are selected from the 
county in which they reside and hold their court. They are 
generally farmers — not, however, like the English gentleman - 
farmer, for such characters do not- exist, and cannot exist, in 
any part of the United States — they are men who follow the 
plough. They seldom^ as I am informed, say a loord on the 
bench. This singular custom has been adopted, because the 
people thought it necessary there should be two persons taken 
from among themselves to conti'ol the President, or Law 
Judge." 

A word in the fu'st place as to these associates, who are by- 
Captain Hall properly distinguished from him who presides, 
or as he is correctly denominated the President, Their pro- 
per office is not, as he supposes, to control the President, but 
to aid in the administration of justice. It must have occurred 
to every one who has witnessed the proceedings of Courts to 
lament the constant want, on the part of the bench, of that 
knowledge of the ordinary business and affairs of life, which 
is so rarely found amongst those who have devoted themselves 
to the studies appropriate to the legal profession. Hence there 
seems to be no great harm, at least, in having on the bench by 
the side of the " Law Judge," tvvo individuals of respectabi- 
lity, whose pursuits in life, rendei' them familiar with the trans- 
actions involved in the great mass of the business which comes 
before the court. Practically, it secures, as it were, two ju- 
rymen of known character, and whose responsibility does not 
disappear with the trial. On all questions of fact, and parti- 
cularly in the exercise of the Court's discretion in granting new 
trials, the utility of such advisers must be apparent. That they 
were not intended to loosen the rules of law is clear, from one 
simple circumstance. Should they interfere actively, instead 
of communicating their advice to the presiding judge, the opi- 
nion which they pronounce can be reviewed by a writ of error 
to the Supreme Court, composed exclusively of lawyers. Nor 
can they evade responsibility. When, in the absence of the 
President, the associates tried a petty case, and told the jury 
that it was impossible for them to pass on the questions of law 
which had been raised, this was held to be error. If they in- 
terfere judicially, it must be in such a way, that the party com- 
plaining, may have their mistakes in point of law corrected. 
That they " seldom say a word on the bench," is a proof that 
in practice they have the good sense not to go beyond their ap- 
propriate functions in the system. 

But our object is not so much to defend the system as to no- 
tice a mistake, in point of fact, on the part of Captain Hall, 



40 

It will have been seen that he readily seized the distinction 
between the presiding and associate judges, and he couples the 
communication of that fact, with the assertion that in Penn- 
sylvania there are *' upwards of a hundred judges who preside 
on the bench." That which Captain Hall urges, in tiie way 
of disparagement, only in long primer, assumes a more malig- 
nant type in the Quarterly Review, and there shoots upon the 
eye, in italics, (No. for November 1829.) Now the sirhple 
fact is, that the State is divided into sixteen judicial districts, 
and to each of these is assigned a president judge. -From their 
decisions a writ of error lies to the Supreme Court, the num- 
ber of whose judges has recently been increased from three to 
to five. In the city of Philadelphia there is an auxiliary court 
of civil jurisdiction, having three judges, and in Lancaster, a 
similar court having one. Thus the whole strength of the ju.- 
dicial corps is twenty-two. The remaining seventy-eight de- 
rive their appointment entirely from Captain Hall. 

Let it be remembered that these functionaries administer jus- 
tice over an extent of country about equal to England and 
Wales together, and that many of thcduties devolved on them, 
are such as in the latter countries are distributed amongst avast 
number of officers not usually classed with judges. They go 
through, not merely the kind of business which falls to the 
lot of the twelve judges of England, and the eight of Wales, 
the Lord Chancellor, the Vice Chancellor, the Master of the 
Rolls, &c., but perform the labours which in England are as- 
signed to the Consistory Courts, the Courts of Quarter Sessions, 
the Commissioners before whom applications are heard for the 
relief of Insolvent Debtors, &c. 

Captain Hall complains, farther, that in this State, they " have 
done away with nearly all the technicalities of the law — there 
are no stamps(!) — no special pleadings — and scarcely any one 
is so poor that he cannot go to law." We must inform our 
headlong critic, in the first place, that stamps are no part of 
the "technicalities" of the law. They are matters connected 
with the Revenue, and it has not yet been found necessary to 
resort to such a tax in Pennsylvania. As to doing away with 
special pleading, it is true, that in cases of contract, a party is 
permitted to file ^statement of his cause of action, with cer- 
tain requisites of distinctness prescribed by law, instead of a 
technical declaration; and the defendant may, in that case, an- 
swer it by a counter statement. It is not compulsory to do this, 
and, where the agency of a lawyer intervenes, it is not usual. 

The truth of the charge against Pennsylvania, that "scarce- 
ly any one is so poor that he cannot go to law," is admitted; 
and we even doubt whether there can be found that favoured 
and happy class to which the slight qualification seems to refer. 
But nothing can be more ridiculous or unfounded than such 



41 

assertions (and he gives us nothing more) as "The life of per- 
sons in ea.sy circutnstances{!) is thus rendered miserable.^^ 
*' No person, be his situation or conduct in life what it may, is 
free from the never-ending pest of law suits," &c. While we 
concede that there is nothing to render it impossible for the hum- 
blest individual to pursue a claim in a court of justice — nothing 
to drive him into an uafair compromise — yet this evil has al- 
ways appeared to us sufficiently compensated, not only by the 
speedy redress of actual injustice, but by the effect which this 
very facility of access to the Courts basin removing the tempt- 
ation offered by a different state of things to the rapacity of 
the employer. Captain Hall thinks it a blessing that the poor 
should have no redress against knavery and fraud; for such is 
the amount of his argument, when properly run out. What 
Substitute does he propose for the Courts to that numerous 
class, to which he would render the latter inaccessible? A re- 
formation in Pennsylvania must be effected in one of two ways: 
either by requiring a Freehold qualification, or the possession 
of a certain sum of money to enter the Courts — or by render- 
ing the costs so onerous that one of the parties must yield from 
exhaustion, at an early stage of the proceedings. Captain 
Hall seems to point to the latter expedient. His suggestions, 
we think, are not likely to be acted on. The present costs are 
sufficiently heavy to punish a vexatious litigant, and they can al- 
ways be thrown upon him by a tender of what is honestly due. 
Labourers from abroad are, it is true, occasionally touched with 
the ambition of being in law, for once; in their lives — just to 
know how it feels — but the expense is soon found to be more 
than the momentary bustle and excitement, and talk of the 
neighbours, are worth, and they discover, besides, that they get 
a bad name amongst those to whom they must look for eftiploy- 
ment. We confess, though not outrageously radical, the ut- 
most surprise and disgust at language which would represent 
our social condition as deplorable, because a member of the 
" money spending class" — not always the most just, or the 
most generous — cannot yet say to one of a different class, *' you 
must either come into the terms I propose, or be ruined by at- 
tempting to take the opinion of that tribunal which the coun- 
try professes to have established to pass impartially between us. 
On the subject of Taxation in this State, we have a singu- 
lar proof of the Captain's candour. He remarks, " In speak- 
ing of the expenses of the United States, people are apt to con- 
sider those only which belong to the general Government. I 
have taken pains," &c. After this note of preparation we are 
given to understand, that the annual disbursement of Pennsyl- 
vania, amounts to nearly two millions and a half of dollars ^ 
and a calculation is made how much must, in consequence, be 
paid j9er head. When it is known, that this State has neither 

6 



42 

Army nor Navy, and that the Custom House Officers are paid 
by the General Goyernment, it will doubtless puzzle the rea- 
der to conjecture what can run away with so much money. The 
secret i&, that it was employed in making a Canal, from the 
eastern to the western part of the State, during the year which 
Captain Hall has selected! Yet we have not the slightest hint 
to that effect, and the Englishman is led to suppose, that, in the 
event of emigrating to this State, he must expect to i>zy, every 
year, his portion of a sum so enormous. It would, obviously, 
be just as fair to say that the sums similarl)^ employed by the 
Duke of Bridgewater ought to be considered as items of ex- 
pense incidental to his oi*dinary establishment; and the capi- 
talist who builds a range of houses to rent, would be pronounced 
by Captain Hall a ruined spendthrift. We can scarcely give 
the tourist credit for ignorance on this occasion, inasmuch as 
the truth is disclosed fii the very document which he quotes. 
He has specified the amount of the items of civil expenses, and 
of the legislature, making together one^tioelfth part of the ag- 
gregate sum. Why silent as to the employment of the residue? 
We know not unless it be for the reason that a fair disclosure 
would show that this expenditure, which the reader of course 
deems a yearly-recurring one, was in fact of a temporary nature, 
and that even the money actually disbursed, is represented by a 
m.digmhc^nid.nd productive public work. The Governor, in his 
message of November 4th, says, "There are now 177 miles 
of the Canal in actual operation. The works have been found 
to be .of such solidity as to produce no other delay than is in- 
cident to the best executed works of like magnitude. It is 
confidently hoped that early next summer, there will be not 
less than 400 miles of the Pennsylvania Canal in full operation. 
To this extent of navigation is to be added, that of the Schuyl- 
kill and Lehigh Canals, and of the Chesapeake and Delaware 
Canal." 

Captain Hall traversed the State in the direction of this Ca- 
nal, and was at points where the work was vigorously proceed- 
ing; and it is a fact, that toll was received from it, prior to the 
publication of his book. He had said, after speaking of the 
New York Canal, " It would be invidious and perhaps ra- 
ther tiresome to describe the numerous abortive schemes for 
Canals, and Rail roads, which the success of this great work 
has set on foot, particularly as opportunities of touching upon 
them will occur as we go on." Of such an opportunity he 
does not choose to avail himself in the case of the Pennsylva- 
nia Canal, even when exhibiting the prodigal disbursements 
of the State. Had he carried his Statistics a little farther on- 
ward, he would have found a yet larger expenditure of money 
by Pennsylvania, on tiiis great work. He has dwelt at much 
length on the Welland Canal of Canada, not yet completed. 



43 

That work, when finished, will owe its existence hot to the ef- 
forts and resources of the Provinces, but to an incorporated 
company, the shares of which are, it is believed, owned prin- 
cipilly in Great Britain, particularly by the Canada Land Com- 
pany, one of those joint stock concerns which sprung up in 
London in 1S25. At all events, it is a project the merit of 
which cannot go beyond the share-holders. With regard to 
the Pennsylvania Canal, the disbursement of the State, of which 
every citizen bears a part, during a single year (Report of the 
Treasurer of the Canal Board, to the Senate, Hazard's Penn- 
sylvania Register, vol. iii. p. 272,) is four tinies greater than 
the whole amount of the Stock subscribed of the Welland Ca- 
nal. (•' Three Years in Canada, by John M'Taggart, Civil 
Engineer," vol. ii. p. 144.) As to the Rideau Canal, the com- 
pletion of which Captain Hall urges so strongly on the Bri- 
tish Government, Mr. M'Taggert (vol. i. p. 15C,) thinks its ac- 
tual cost will treble that originally contemplated; yet assuming 
his estimate to be correct, it will appear that the single year's 
expenditure of Pennsylvania above referred to, exceeds that es- 
timate by one million of dollars. We must bear in mind that 
Pennsylvania derives no aid from the general Government, 
which draws so large a portion of its revenue from her great 
seaport. Canada, on the contrary, is not to render any as- 
sistance towards the Hideau Canal, though its Custom House 
duties are placed at the disposal of the Provincial Government, 
(Captain Hall, vol. i. p. 419,) and our tourist justly remarks, 
^' were they to become members of the American Confedera- 
cy, all such duties would be subjected to the control of the Con- 
gress at Washington." These observations are made in no in- 
vidious temper, but they seem to heighten the unfairness of, 
not only refusing to give Pennsylvania credit for her energy, 
but, by concealing the objects of expenditure, actually turning 
into matter of reproach the truly liberal and enlightened poli- 
cy by which her councils have been distinguished. It is need- 
less to say that the remark made with regard to Pennsylvania, 
is equally applicable to New York, whose principal canal cost 
(Captain Hall, vol. i. p. 173,) more than fourteen times the 
amount of the Stock of the Welland Canal. The Customs of 
the seaport of that State, also, flow to the general governme"nt, 
and lent no assistance to the enterprise. 

Our tourist discovered that in each of the twenty-four States 
of the Union there is a separate judicial establishment, not ame- 
nable to any common head, but passing finally on every point 
of law vs^hich may arise before it. He infers that such a circum- 
stance must greatly confuse the administration of justice, and 
render commercial intercourse very unsafe. As this is a.subject 
best illustrated to the general reader by referring to what is fami- 
liar to him, it may be well to take for that purpose the case of 



44 

England and Scotland, which lie amicably side by side, like . 
New York and Penr;sylvania, although, the former are of com- 
paratively diminutive size. Will it be pretended that there is 
any thing like the conformity between the systems of law which 
prevail in these two parts of Great Britain, as there is between 
those of the States we have named? Certainly not by any one 
who has the slightest knowledge of the subject We are relieved 
from the necessity of furnishing the various references we had 
prepared, by meeting with the following remarks, in the intro- 
ductory article to "The Scots Law Chronicle, or Journal of 
Jurisprudence and Legislation, conducted by Professional Gen- 
tlemen" — a periodical work commenced at Edinburgh during 
the last year, and displaying great ability. 

*' In the reign of James the First of England, and Sixth of 
Scotland, the ministry, and particularly Lord Bacon, then So- 
licitor General of England, made some efforts in Parliament, 
and otherwise, to assimilate the laws and practice of England 
and Scotland; but the prejudices which existed on both sides of 
the Tweed prevented any material progress being at that period 
effected. Since that time, notwithstanding the union of the 
Crowns of both kingdoms, and the legislature of each, the laws 
of England and Scotland have been kept separate, and adminis- 
tered in different forms. The English system is distinguished 
by the preference given to the common law in opposition to the 
civil law. The Scots system has been taken Jrom the civil 
law and the laws and customs of the Continental nations, 
particularly France, betiveen which and Scotland an alli- 
ance and intiTnate intercourse existed many centuries. For 
example, the Act of the Scots Parliament of King James the 
Sixth (afterwards James the First of England,) 1593, c, 180, 
is in the following terms — (We give only the concluding words 
of the Statute, "According to the lovable form of judgment used 
in all gude towns of France and Flanders, quhair burses are 
erected, and constituted and speciallie in Paris, Roan, Bor- 
deaux, Rochelle.") " Foreign laws and authorities were then, 
and still are, permitted to be quoted in the Scots courts, with- 
out any other limitation than the discretion of the advocate. 
English laivyers are, in general, profoundly ignorant of 
the Scots laws, customs, and practice, and strongly preju- 
diced against them. Of this a remarkable instance occurred 
on the occasion of Wakefield's trial for the abduction of Miss 
Turner, in which a Scots barrister was examined as to the Scots 
law of marriage. Mr. Brougham, and an army of English 
barristers, animated by the amor patrise of John Bull, thought 
they had caught the Caledonia-i in their own coils, from which 
he could not escape without exposing the ignorance of the Scots 
bar generally, and proving that the boasted system of the aca- 
demical education of his nation, as to the civil law, was mere 



iij 

sham and farce. In another instance, on the appointment of 
a Scots barrister to be a judge at the Cape of Good Hope, Mr. 
Brougham, in his place of Parliament, arraigned the Govern- 
ment for overlooking the English bar. In his opinion it was 
"absurd" to send judges from the Scottish bar to the Colonies." 
The writers add, " it not unfrequently happeiis that what is held 
to be sound law and equity in Scotland, is held the reverse in 
England. Mr. Sugden, lately, in an appeal case, before the 
Peers, in which he was counsel, delivered a tirade against the 
whole law of Scotland. This celebrated ebullition has raised 
his fame, &c. (ib.) 

One important circumstance is not referred to by this writer, 
viz., that by the 18th Article of the Union, it is declared that 
the laws relating to private rights are not to be altered, but 
for the '■'evident utility of the people of Scotland," a provi- 
sion, the jealous caution of which may have contributed to throw 
insuperable obstacles in the way of a legislative effort at assimi- 
lation, even if it could, under any circumstances, be deemed 
practicable to break up, and remodel, a system which has been so 
long accomodating itself to the exigencies, as well as to the ha- 
bits and prejudices, of the people. What are the consequences 
of this state of things? Does the English trader deem it neces- 
sary to purchase a Library of Scots Law Books, before he opens 
an account at Edinburgh or Glasgow? He thinks no more of 
this, than of learning French and studying the Code Napoleon, 
before he sends an order to France for silks or brandy. Nay, 
he is compelled to remain in the same ignorance of the law of 
his own country, for it has long been held a point of ridicule 
to attempt to master it, and the reports in every morning's 
newspaper, furnish him with new grounds of marvel at its un- 
certainty. He is fain to rely on the presumption that there will 
be found, in every civilized country, certain general principles 
of justice and good faith, by which his rights will be protected, 
should he unfortunately be involved in litigation. 

But Captain Hall v/ill ask, have I not heard of " Scotch Ap- 
peal Cases," and are not the questions which they involve final- 
ly settled in the House of Lords? Certainly they are, but these 
cases settle only points of Scots Law. They bring it into no 
greater conformity with that of England. In the same manner, 
on the 1st of December last, there came before the Privy Coun- 
cil the case of Simpson v. Forrester, an appeal from the Island 
of Demarara, (See Morning Herald of December 2d.) It was 
curious, in the middle of the proceedings, to see The Paymas- 
ter of the Forces come in and take his seat at the Board. The 
controversy turned on the principles of the Dutch Civil Law, 
and was argued accordingly; but we feel persuaded that the 
pains-taking and laborious fathers of that system would have 
been very little edified by the discussion. Without going to 



46 

India, or Canadn, or the Cape of Good Hope, we may note that 
the outskirts of the Mother Island itself are governed by sys- 
tems of law essentially different from each other. Thus *'the 
Isle of Man is a distinct territory from England, and is not go- 
verned by our linvs;" (Biackstone. ) "The islands of Jersey, 
Guernsey, Sark, Alderney, and their appendages, were parcel 
of the Duchy of Normandy, and were united to the crown of 
England by the first Princes of the Norman line. They are 
governed by their own laws, which are for the most part the. du- 
cal customs of Normandy, being collected in an ancient book 
of very great authority, entitled Le Grand Costumier. The 
King's writ or process from the Courts of Westminster, is there 
of no force."— (ib. ) 

Thus, then, we have the comfort to know that the various 
parts of this great commercial empire — nay, portions of the 
same island,- — are under the dominion of laws radically dissimi- 
lar in their principles, their forms of proceeding, and even in 
their language; and ye4, none of those " moral convulsions" 
have resulted with which Captain Hall so seriously threatens 
the unhappy people of the United States. 

But it happens to be our singular good fortune to enjoy a de- 
gree of similarity in the laws throughout the United States, un- 
precedented elsewhere. The Common Law prevails, with a 
trifling exception, over the whole of the Union. There is 
scarcely a j9a/o/,s in its dialect. The lawyer of Pennsylvania 
can advise as to a case depending in New York, so far as it turns 
on common law principles. The books resorted to are precise- 
ly the same. And so of the other States, from Maine to Geor- 
gia. The text book throughout is Biackstone, and each mind 
is incumbent over the same principles. 

One striking advantage of this state of things is, that the la- 
bours of every lawyer, and every judge, render a mutual aid. 
A happy illustration— a fortunate reference — or a striking ana- 
logy, is not a mere local benefit. Every member of the pro- 
fession knows instantly where to common-place it. In Great 
Britain, on the contrary, England and Scotland offer no such 
co-operation. They are engaged on different systems. The 
workings of the Scotch mind are unknown to English jurispru- 
dence. Mr. Jeffrey once asked with a sneer, " Who reads an 
American Book?" We may ask, in return, " W'iio reads a 
Scotch case?" The force — the acuteness — the learning of the 
North offer no contribution to the general stock. This is un- 
doubtedly a great evil. When we recollect what Scotland has 
done for the Philosophy of the Human Mind, and for Medicine, 
it is painful to reflect how completely her great intellectual pow- 
ers have been lost to us in Law, and that the very tenns which 
the Judge employs, are an almost incomprehensible jargon. 



47 

*' BiU'barus hie sum quia non iutelligor ulll." 

It is said, with an air of great alarm, that Reports are pub- 
lished of decisions in the different State Courts, and that this 
multiplicity of books must lead to confusion. Let it be recol- 
lected, however, that the decision made in each State, whether 
right or wrong, furnishes a conclusive rule in that State. It is 
not the less uniform and unvarying in its application, because a 
different rule may obtain in England, or in any of the sister 
States. There is no confusion or faltering in the actual admi- 
nistration of justice. Why, then, should harm result from the 
publication of decisions? If they had remained, be it observed, 
in manuscript or in the memory, nobody would be perplexed, 
and they would interest no one beyond the limits of the par- 
ticular State. The benefit, to be derived from their publication 
is manifest. If a lawyer in Pennsylvania be anxious to learn 
how the law stands on a particular point in New York, he as- 
sumes, that Chitty or Sugden, will furnish a clue, but it is all 
the better if he can, instead of writing to New York for in- 
formation, refer to an Index of decisions, and ascertain, in a 
moment, whether the question has actually engaged the atten- 
tion of the Judges of that State. It will not be denied that the 
practitioner as well as the citizen of the State, in which the 
decisions form a binding rule, is greatly interested in having 
them placed within his reach, through the press. But the com- 
plaint is, that elsewhere, each volume published forms a dis- 
tressing addition to the Law Catalogues. 

According to this, it would lead to great confusion in Eng- 
land, if the Scots Reports were intelligible to the English bar- 
rister; and it would be much better for us, if the systems of 
law, in the several States, were so decrepant that no one of 
them could borrow illustration from the other. Suppose our 
neighbour Mexico, were to adopt the Common Law — ought 
we to regret the circumstance! Captain Hall says, yes — be- 
cause here would be a twenty-fifth ♦* co-ordinate" tribunal on 
the same continent, deciding points of law, and, by and by, 
volumes of reports will come out to annoy and perplex us.* It 
might, with quite as much force, be urged, that the multipli- 
city of reports published in the United Stales, is calculated to 
confuse the English Courts. These books profess to illusti'ate 
the Common Law, and, if possessed of merit, there is no rea- 
son why they should not be sought for, and read, wherever that 
law prevails. They are no more binding on the Courts of the 
other States, than on the King's Bench. Their weight, out of 
the particular State, is derived not from the official character 
of the person who has pronounced the decision, but from the 
degree of talent, which is supposed to have been brought to 
its composition. An Essay by Mr. Kent, or Mr. Spencer, will 
carry greater influence than a judicial opinion of the Court over 



48 

which they recently presided. In short, supposing what is not 
tlie fact, that each State had its reporter, the result would be no- 
thing more, than if twenty-four gentlemen of professional res- 
pectability were employed in publishing so many editions of 
Blackstone, or any other elementary writer, with comments. 
Whoever'will take the trouble to glance over these reports, or 
even to look over a digest of them will be surprised to find how 
little discrepancy there is amongst the different tribunals. They 
reach the same conclusion with a greater or less display of learn- 
ing and ingenuity. This fact will be very apparent on looking 
over a standard English work, republished "with American 
notes." The result, then, will not be as Captain Hall supposes, 
a " moral convulsion," but that it will not be thought neces- 
sary for the lawyer to run his eye eagerly over the Index of 
every volume that appears in law-binding. The truth is, eve- 
ry one must know the utter impossibility of mastering even 
what is of established authority in the law. Who can pretend 
to have read Viner's Abridgment, and verified all the refer- 
ences? "If," says Lord Erskine, "a man were to begin to 
read his Law Library through, he would be superannuated be- 
fore he came to the end." Even in Selden's day, "The main 
thing is to know where to search." (Table Talk.) Amongst 
this vast collection of books some principle of selection must, 
of course, be adopted, and the best, undoubtedly, is that of re- 
sorting to the great master spirits of the system. The late 
Mr. Pinkney, who stood at the head of the American bar, ne- 
ver tired of Coke Littleton. In this science, as in every other, 
students are driven to adopt Pliny's rule of reading not " mul- 
ta," but " multum." It cannot be a grievance to the Ameri- 
can la wj'^er that some of these standard works are the produc- 
tion of his own country. 

We should note that, in the United States, the interpretation 
of the Constitution, of Treaties, and of Acts of Congress, rests 
exclusively with the Supreme Court of the Union. A case in- 
volving a question of this kind, and decided adversely to the 
claifh set up under either of them, may be carried to that tri- 
bunal even though it originate in a State Court. 

In exposing the mistakes, into which our tourist is sure to 
fall whenever his criticism assumes a definite shape, we have 
given the only answer which can well be furnished to the 
greater part of his book. As to general invective against popu- 
lar influence, it is precisely the language which every despot 
would hold with regard to this country. If Don Miguel were 
to publish an account of his visit to England, he might borrow 
most of these pages, and the only possiisle answer would be to 
ask him, as we do Captain Hall, to point out the evils which 
have resulted from it. He seems to think, that he has made 
out his case yery triumphantly against the people, by asking 



49 

what we would think of their deciding upon *' the best kind of 
escapement in the machinery of a Chronometer," or " how a 
stranded ship should be got off a reef of rocks." This argu- 
ment, too, will apply just as well to England as to America, 
unless, by a peculiar plan of reform, he can contrive to disfran- 
chise all except the rotten boroughs. The voters who actually 
return members to Parliament he will scarcely describe as men 
of profound learning and sagacity. Here, then, pro tanto, is a 
vicious part of the system. But, farther, even supposing the 
questions presented to a voter, to be as abstruse as the points to 
which Captain Hall refers, we must beg hitn to remember that 
the latter may come, even in England, before the very persons 
whom he so much derides. Suppose nn action, on a contract 
for a supply of the best description of Chronometers, or a con- 
test between the master of a ship, and his owners, or freighters, 
as to the exercise of due diligence and skill, the decision must, 
in either case, unavoidably, devolve on the very men, as jurors, 
whom Captain Hall holds in such sovereign contempt. They 
listen to testimony, as the voter does to political reasoning, but 
the ultimate responsibility is thrown on their judgment. Such 
is the peril of an illustration! 

It should be mentioned, by the way, that Captain Hall, by 
assuming what he deems a graceful air of candour, seems to have 
prepared, in anticipation, an apology for the bhuiders into which 
his rashness might lead him. Thus, at Philadelphia, a gentle- 
man took him to task, about an opinion on the subject of lan- 
guage, which he had advanced in his book on Loo Choo. " Be- 
fore he proceeded far in his argument, he made it quite clear, 
that I had known little or nothing of the matter; and when at 
length, he asked, why such statements had been put forth, 
there was no answer to be made, but that of Dr. Johnson to the 
lady, who discovered a wrong definition in his Dictionary, 
*' sheer ignorance, madam!" Now, we very much question his 
right to take refuge under the mantle of Dr. Johnson, and we 
are quite sure that the Doctor would have indignantly repelled 
him. The best of human works, after the most anxious prepa- 
ration, are liable to error; but this is scarcely a sufficient vindi- 
cation of him who travels out of his proper sphere, and hazards 
reckless assertions about matters which he has not even attempt- 
ed to master. He may mislead the ignorant, while he cannot 
render the slightest aid to those who are competent to form an 
opinion. Captain Hall thinks it very absurd to suppose that an 
American citizen is qualified to exercise, understandingly, the 
right of suffrage; and yet he undertakes, during his ride over 
the country, to denounce all its institutions and its whole course 
of policy. 

We proceed to notice some of his remarks of a different de- 
scription. 

7 



50 

He has descanted, largely, on tlie practice of giving to our 
towns the names of the celebrated places or persons of antiqui- 
ty; and this part of his book aifords, perhaps, a pretty fair spe- 
cimen of the powers of reasoning and reflection which he dis- 
plays on topics, not demanding any constitutional or legal know- 
ledge. When he first heard these towns familiarly spoken of, 
by " stage drivers, and stage passengers," he tells us, that " an 
involuntary smile found its way to the lips, followed often by a 
good hearty laugh " He, afterwards, underwent several changes 
of opinion on the subject to which we shall advert, after first of- 
fering a fevv words of explanation. 

That a town containing a large number of houses and inhabi- 
tants, is entitled to a name of some kind or other, will scarcely 
be denied. Having, then, exhausted the old stock of family ap- 
pellatives, whither are we to turn? The shifts to which England 
has resorted are truly embarrassing to a stranger. Thus, if he 
have an acquaintance at " Newcastle," he may not hope that a 
letter, thus directed, will reach its destination by mail, unless he 
know whether the proper addition be " under Line,^^ or " upon 
Tyne.^' Then there is " Henley iipon Thames,'' and " Hen- 
ley in v^rdeUf" &c. &c. In London, too, the same scanty no- 
menclature is a source of like inconvenience. The American 
Consul's Office is in Bishopsgate Street; aye, but " Bishopsgate 
Street within,'' or " Bishopsgate Sti;eet ivithout?'^ The word 
iVe?^ is in perpetual requisition, '■^ New Bond Street," *^ New 
Burlington Street," &c., whilst half-a-dozen of the same name 
are distinguishable only as attaches to different Squares, and 
are very much offended, if the title be not given in full. Every 
stranger remembers, " I have ordered supper to-night in East- 
cheap," but if he go in pursuit of the Boar's Head with no other 
clue, he is quite embarrassed to find, that in the march of im- 
provement, there is ^' Great Eastcheap," and ^^ Little East- 
cheap," and in his vexation, he is tempted to wish that these 
people had known, where, as Falstaff says, "a commodity of 
good names were to be bought." 

To obviate this liability to confusion is, of course, the first ob- 
ject, and though there be not much in a name, yet, in making a 
selection, it is quite natural that some reference to a feeling of 
propriety should mingle in the debate. Captain Hall would have 
been startled at coming to a place called Jilgiers, just as he 
would have looked round with surprise, at hearing an American 
saluted as Benedict Arnold. In domestic life we are fond of 
conferring on our children names which may place before their 
eyes, as models, such of our relatives as were most estimable for 
conduct and character, so as not only to furnish a generous in- 
centive to virtue, but a perpetual rebuke of unworthiness. We 
venture to assert, that this important matter was duly attended 
to, in reference to Captain Hall's amiable little fellow-traveller, 



51 

aged fourteen months. In acting on this analogy, it happens, 
that as we are the oldest living' republic, we are necessarily 
driven back to ancient times. Now, it is singularly unfortunate 
for us, that all the Captain's prejudices run in an exactlj'^ oppo- 
site direction from ours. Thus he ridicules the State Legisla- 
tures, because he finds in them, Farmers, " not, however, like 
the English Gcntki7ian farmer, for such characters do not ex- 
ist, and cannot exist in any part of the United States; they are 
men who follow the plough." Of course, had he been one of 
those who waited on Cincinnatus, in old times, to offer him the 
dictatorship, and found him engaged in the same derogatory em- 
ployment, Captain Hall would have turned off with huge dis- 
dain — have pronounced the Roman to be "no gentleman," and 
declared that he was not at all the sort of person for their pur- 
pose. "When, thorefore, he found a great town called after such 
a personage, his smile, we suspect, was at figuring to himself the 
odd idea of a General holding the plough lines. But let us hear 
first his reasoning in our favour, and then the grounds of his con- 
demnation. He represents himself to have become ashamed of 
the mirthful spirit which he at first manifested, '' All these un- 
courteous and irrepressible feelings of ridicule, (i. e. a loud, im- 
pudent laugh in the face of his fellow-passengers, at words inci- 
dentally occurring in their conversation,) " were F hoped quite 
eradicated." He began to think that the Americans, "although 
they had broken the cords of national union, were still disposed 
to bind themselves to us, by the ties of classical sentiment at 
least." He thus proceeds: " By the same train of friendly rea- 
soning, I was led to imagine it possible, that the adoption of such 
names as Auburn — ■'■ loveliest village of the plain' — Port Byron, 
and the innumerable Londons, Bublins, Edinburghs, and so on, 
were indicative of a latent or lingering kindliness towards the 
old country. The notion, that it was degrading to the venera- 
ble Roman names, to fix them upon these mushroom towns in 
the wilderness, I combated, I flattered myself somewhat adroit- 
ly, on the principle, that, so far from the memory of Ithaca or 
Syracuse, or any such place, being degraded by the appropria- 
tion, the honour rather lay with the ancients, who, it is the fa- 
shion to take for granted, enjoyed a less amount of freedom and 
intelligence than their modern namesakes. 'Let us,' I said one 
day, to a friend, who was impugning these doctrines, 'take Syra- 
cuse for example, which in the year 1820, consisted of one house, 
one mill, and one tavern; now, in 1S27, it holds fifteen hundred 
inhabitants, has two large churches, innumerable wealthy shops, 
filled with goods brought there by water-carriage from every cor- 
ner of the Globe; two large and splendid hotels; many dozens of 
grocery stores or whiskey shops; several busy printing presses, 
from one of which issues a weekly newspaper; a daily post 
from the east, the south, and the west; has a broad canal run- 



52 

ning through Its hosom; in short, it is a great and free city. 
Where is this to be matched,' I exclaimed, 'in Ancient Italy 
or Greece?' " 

" It grieves me much, however, to have the ungracious task 
forced upon me, of entirely demolishing my own plausible han- 
diwork. But truth renders it necessary to declare, that on a 
longer acquaintance with all these matters, I discovered that I 
was all in the wrong, and that there was not a word of sense in 
what I had uttered with so much studied candour. What is the 
most provoking proof, that this fine doctrine of profitable asso- 
ciations was practically absurd, is the fact, that even I myself, 
though comparatively so little acquainted with the classical 
sounding places in question, have, alas! seen and heard enough 
of them, to have nearly all my classical recollections swept away 
by the contact.. Now, therefore, whenever I meet with the 
name of a Roman city, or an author, or a general, instead of 
having my thoughts carried back, as heretofore, to the regions 
of antiquity, I am transported forthwith, in imagination, to the 
post-road on my v,'ay to Lake Erie, and my joints and bones 
turn sore at the bare recollection of joltings, and other nameless 
vulgar annoyances by da}' and by night, which I much fear, will 
outlive all the little classical knowledge of my juvenile days." 

When we remember that the eat^ly emigrants to Rome were 
thieves and cut-throats — that its corner stone was stained by the 
blood of the founder's brother — that wives were procured from 
the Sabines by a process of courtship, for which, in modern 
times, the wooers would be all hanged or transported — and that 
the very site of the infant town was chosen from some absurd 
superstition about a flight of birds — the presumption of adopting 
even that proud, name, may not, perhaps, be deemed altogether 
unpardonable. These towns have grown up with a rapidity 
greater than that of Rome. They were founded by men, who 
brought with them virtuous wives and daughters, and whose 
earliest object, in the case referred to by the tourist, was to build 
**tvvo large churches" for the purpose of worshipping God ac- 
cording to the dictates of that religion for which Captain Hall 
professes a very sincere zeal. He might well ask, then, whether 
the origin of any heathen town of antiquity presents a spectacle 
half so interesting to the philanthropist or the Christian. 

But the reason which he assigns for his ultimate decision is the 
most singular part of the whole matter. After having confuted 
his anonymous friend in the argument, as he generally contrives 
to do on all these occasions, he seems anxious to show that he 
can "confute, change sides, and still confute." He decides that 
the Americans are all wrong, because Ae, a passing traveller, in- 
stead of bearing away with him a thousand circumstances which 
might kindle admiration and enthusiasm, perversely chooses to 
remember nothing, except that he met, somewhere in the neigh- 



53 

bourhood, a piece of bad road! This is the whole of his argu- 
ment. Is it, to use his favourite epithet, a very '* philosophi- 
cal'* one? Gibbon, in a letter from London, in 1793, speaking 
of the highway a few hours' ride from the metropolis, says, " I 
was almost killed between Sheffield Place and East Grinsted, by 
hard, frozen, long and cross ruts, that would disgrace the ap- 
proach of an Indian wigwam." Yet he did not take a disgust 
either to London, or to the residence of his friend, Lord Shef- 
field. Even Captain Hall professes to revert with infinite plea- 
sure to the scenes he witnessed in Canada," notwithstanding all 
the horrors of his ox-cart. " Over these horrible wooden cause- 
ways, technically called corduroy roads, it would be misery to 
travel in any description of carriage, but in a wagon or cart, with 
nothing but wooden springs, it is most trying to every joint in 
one's body. A bear-skin, it is true, is generally laid on the seat, 
but this slips down or slips up, in short, somehow or other, the 
poor voyager's bones pay for all, notwithstanding the tender mer- 
cies of the bear. The recollection of such annoyances, howe- 
ver, were they twenty times greater, would vanish beneath the 
renewed touch of agreeable society. On reaching York," &c. 

We are occasionally led, indeedj to suspect, not a little, the in- 
tegrity of the Captain, in his assumption of a sort of blufi', down- 
right, temper, which compels him to make offensive remarks. 
*' I must say this," "Truth obliges me," &:c. Thus on quit- 
ting the Capital of Upper Canada, the party found, "close, choky 
woods; the horrible coi'duroy roads again made their appear- 
ance in a more formidable shape, by the addition of deep, inky 
holes, which almost swallowed up the fore-wheels of thevvagon, 
and bathed its hinder axle tree. The jogging and plunging to 
which we were now exposed, and the occasional bang wlien the 
vehicle reached the bottom of one of these abysses, were so new 
and remarkable in the history of our travels, that we tried to 
make a i(ood joke of them, and felt rather amused than other- 
wise on discovering, by actual experiment, what ground might 
on a pinch, as it is called, be travelled over!" 

When so much good humour is manifested in Canada — when 
he is found offering the most nauseous flattery to the people 
there, to their faces, about the "tone" of their "manners," 
and the blessings of their condition, — we are led to suspect that 
the peevishness in the United States, as to chambermaids, &c., 
is merely used as a convenient pretext for venting ill-natured 
remarks. We have heard of one. 

Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect 
A saucy roiigtiness, and constrains tlie garb 
■ Quite from his nature. He cannot flatter — he ! 
An honest mind and plain — he must speak truth 
An tliey will take it — so — if not — he's plain. 
These kind of knaves I know, which, in tliis plainness, 
Harbour more crafty ai\d more corrupter ends. 



54 

Than twenty silly, ducking observants, 
That stretch their duties nicely. 

The part of Captain Hall's book which wears, perhaps, the 
most disingenuous air, is that relating to Slavery. There is no 
£opic, as is well knawn, which has furnished so many sarcasms 
against the United Slates, as the existence of a practice so utter- 
ly at war with that universal freedom, which their popular in- 
stitutions are supposed to guaranty. Under the pressure of these 
reproaches Americans have taken the trouble to trace with great 
care the his'tory of the rise and progress of this evil, and have 
established, by the clearest evidence, that it was planted there 
against ihe earnest remonstrances of the colonists — that it was 
fixed on us at a period when we formed a component part of the 
British empire, and that the earliest efforts of the States, so soon 
as they became independent, were directed to mitigate, and in 
some of them actually to extirpate it. The infamous traffic was 
first opened, and pursued, by Sir John Hawkins. So late as the 
year 1713, England engaged to supply Spainvvith 4800 negroes 
annually, and it was only by the treaty of Madrid, concluded 
on the 5th October, 1750, that she yielded ''the right to the en- 
joyment of the Assiento of negroes, and of the annual ship," 
during the four unexpired years. We would seem, therefore, 
sufficiently secured against any sarcasm from that quarter. That 
Captain Hall was aware of all this, and had found our defence 
one which it was easier to evade than to answer, may be in- 
ferred from the following remark with which he prefaces the 
discussion. 

*' The Americans are perpetually twitting England with 
having entailed slavery upon their country. The charge in- 
deed may be true, and there is no denying that it was every 
way disgraceful in the British Ministry of former times to 
thioart the wishes of the colonists, if, indeed, they sincerely de- 
sired to avoid the incipient evil which has fallen so heavily upon 
their descendants." He assumes a philosophical air as the best 
reply. " This scornful bandying of national recriminations, 
however, is, to say the least of it, very unphilosophical — in fact, 
worse than useless, as it tends to irritate two countries who have 
no cause of quarrel." Speaking of the anxious effisrts every 
where made to render the condition of this class of beings more 
tolerable, he says, " It is useless, then, for foreigners to hold the 
language of reproach or of appeal to America, thereby imply- 
ing a belief in the existence of such legislative power. It is 
mischievous to suppose that such interference can be of use, be- 
cause this vain belief turns men's thoughts from those genuine 
meliorations, which are possible, into channels where philan- 
thropy as well as patriotism either run completely to waste or 
tend," &c. 

That a sudden emancipation is impossible, he concedes. It 



cannot be expected that men, " who like their fathers before 
them, have derived their whole substance from this source, and 
who look to it. as a provision for their descendants," can be ex- 
pected at once to surrender their property. Were the British 
West Fndies to become independent, and to adopt a form of 
Government, having especial reference to popular rights, they 
could only say, as we do, that it was an evil belonging to other 
days, from all the effects of which it is impossible now to escape- 
Yet, with this air of candour. Captain Hall takes care that his 
book shall not want the piquancy so acceptable to the palate of 
those who cherish the " unkind feelings," which he attributes 
to this country. No work on America has furnished to malig- 
nity, so many delightful, choice paragraphs as these very Tra- 
vels. He well knows that, in the temper which he describes, 
there are many who take up every such book, with a view to 
score deeply, for extract, just so much as will serve to gratify 
the vitiated appetites for which they daily cater. We have, 
therefore, a great deal about " inconsistency with the principles 
so much cried up in that republic.^' He gives a long account 
of the sale of a Slave at Washington, and throws in with dra- 
matic effect, " The flags were just hoisted on the top of the 
building, which intimate that the Senate, and the House of Re- 
presentatives had assembled, to discuss the affairs of this free 
nation — Slavery amongst the rest." He tells us, that during 
the sale he exclaimed, " with more asperity than good breeding, 
thank God! we don^t do such things in my country. ^^ If 
ashamed of this out break of vulgarity, why put it into his book 
to minister to the self-complacency of the one side, and the mor- 
tification of the other? Captain Hall declines to argue the ques- 
tion, whether the parent country did not fasten on us this evi! 
in spite of our remonstrances; he deprecates an allusion to her 
supplying Spain with negroes, under the accursed Assiento con- 
tract. Surely, then, it is worse than pharasaical, for Great Bri- 
tain, to stand afar off and thank God, that she is not like Ame- 
rica, in this particular. May we not be reminded of the tri- 
umph of a mother, who, having administered poison to her 
infant child, blesses herself, in after life, that she is not racked 
by the lingering pains it has left behind, and who mocks at the 
occasional convulsive twitch of her offspring's muscles? 

He works up, very happ;iy, what lie saw at New Orleans. It 
may be readily conceived that one of the arguments urged in ex- 
tenuation of Slavery, is the impossibility, in some of the States, 
of employing any other description of labour. Thus Louisiana, 
as Captain Hall remarks, " must be worked by Slaves, or not 
at all." Hence it was not unnatural to take advantage of any 
opportunity of transferring them to a climate more congenial to 
the constitution of the negro, and where this argument might 
have its full alleviating force. Many gentlemen of Virginia 



and Maryland, have purchased plantations in Louisiana and 
Mississippi, and taken their Slaves thither. Captain Hall wit- 
nessed such a transfer, in a brig at New Orleans from Baltimore, 
and it gives rise to the following remark: — " Her decks pre- 
sented a scene which forcibly reminded me of Rio Janeiro. In 
the one case, however, the Slaves were brought from the savage 
regions of ,^/rica : in the other, from the very heart of a free 
country.^' 

It is curious to look over the English newspapers, and notice 
with what avidity such passages have been seized .on by those 
who, like the leech, eagerly fasten where the skilful operator 
has allured by the slightest puncture. Yet this is the philoso- 
pher who deprecates "twitting" on such a subject, as it "tends 
to irritate two countries who have no cause of quarrel!" 

In the same sneering temper, Captain Hall has remarked, " It 
is laid down by the Americans, as an admitted maxim, to doubt 
the solidity of which, never enters into any man's head for an 
instant, that a rapid increase of population is, to all intents, 
tantamount to an Increase of national greatness and power, 
as well as of individual happiness and prosperity. Conse- 
quently, say they, such increase ought to be forwarded by eve- 
ry possible means, as the ^greatest blessing to the country." 
(Vol. i. p. 153.) Captain Hall never heard an American utter 
such a sentiment, and he is desired to point to any effort thus to 
force population. If such were the prevalent theory, why not 
offer our public lands gratuitously to the foreigner, or even add 
a bounty of sixty pounds sterling to every family agreeing to 
accept a hundred acres, as has been done in Canada.-* We have 
again to regret that Captain Hall, instead of offering a mawkish 
eulogium on Dr. Franklin (the " Socrates of modern times") 
had not taken the trouble to read the works of that sage and pa- 
triot. In the Remarks to Emigrants, written in the year 1784, 
will be found the following expressions: — "Strangers are wel- 
come, because there is room enough for them all, and, therefore, 
the old inhabitants are not jealous of them; the laws protect 
them sufficiently, so that they have no need of the patronage of 
great men; and every one will enjoy securely the profits of his 
industry. But if he does not bring a fortune with him, he must 
work and be industrious to live." 

The same feeling exists at the present day. We do not con- 
sider, as Captain Hall pretends, an increase of population to be 
the " greatest blessing." We hold tiie diffusion of sound mo- 
rals, of attachment to our institutions, and of education, to be 
the paramount objects of solicitude. We believe thai those who 
come amongst us, and find themselves in the midst of a tranquil, 
industrious, and happy people, where the laws secure to every 
man the fruits of his industry, and where the opportunity of ex- 
ercising that industry is readily found, may be expected to fall 



Ui 



into those habits which will render them quiet, useful citizens, 
and to become attached to the institutions which anxiously con- 
sult their safety and happiness. If the stranger be wealthy, he 
may select his plan of life, without danger of molestation; if 
needy, the implements of labour are speedily placed in his hands. 
Captain Hall visited, on the banks of the Delaware, one of the 
brothers of Napoleon, the Ex-King; of Spain, and remarks, "I 
trust I am taking no unwarrantable liberty, by mentioning that 
he has gained the confidence and esteem, not only of all his 
neighbours, but of every one in America, who has the honour 
of his acquaintance — a distinction which he owes partly to the 
discretion with which he has uniformly avoided all interference 
with the exciting topics that distract the country of his adoption, 
and partly to the suavity of his personal address, and the gene- 
rous hospitality of his princely establishment." Another mem- 
ber of the same family, but not in the same affluent circum- 
stances, is endeavouring to make himself useful in Florida, and 
was recently a candidate for a seat in the council of that territo- 
ry. If he possess any portion of the talent of his great relative, 
he may be destined to aid in the formation of its code of laws, 
when it shall have a sufficient population to become a member 
of the Union. We have no apprehension of strangers. The 
stream is too broad, and deep, and strong, to be discoloured or 
rendered turbid. The idle and the profligate quickly find that 
America is not their proper home. The mere schemer is soon 
rebuked by the good sense and steadiness of the people, and 
abandons them in despair. Captain Hall's deistical or theistical 
countryman, Mr Owen, he may take back and welcome. We 
do not think it the " greatest blessing" to have amongst us men 
like him, who, failing in every thing else, at length make a des- 
perate snatch at our souls. These blasphemous visionaries are 
forthwith exposed, and laughed at. 

As a singular proof of Captain Hall's wish to misrepresent, 
or of absurd misconception, we may refer to his account of our 
impatience at being obliged to use the English language. "It 
is curious enough," he says, " by the way, to see the discom- 
fort that some scrupulous Americans show to the mere name 
of our common tongue.'' 

That any such silly expression of "discomfort" reached his 
ears, is rather improbable; but we can readily believe that he 
may have heard from Americans, a speculative suggestion on the 
subject which he has strangely perverted, and which we will at- 
tempt to explain. 

It has, undoubtedly, been sometimes thought a matter of re- 
gret that there is no language which has grown up, as it were, 
with the country, and which bears, as we might then hope it 
would, a peculiar, felicitous, reference to its condition, physical 
and moral. Without going beyond objects of the former cha- 

a 



racter, it must be remembered that we brought with us a lan- 
guage adapted to a state of things essentially different from that 
which America presents. Take for example the word " Lake." 
Drawing our ideas from England, and from English poetry, we 
attach to it the notion of an appendage to pleasure-grounds. We 
think of Goldsmith's line — 

" Space for liis Lake, his park's extended bounds." 

and it is not until an American finds himself on one of our vast 
internal seas, which bear the same name, that he feels the abject 
poverty of the epithet. He has read and thought of American 
nature through the medium of a translation. The word is so 
far from suggesting the object, that he has to disengage himself 
from its influence, before its conception can adequately expand. 
He has measured by square inches, what must be measured by 
square miles. So of the word " Falls," which is equally ap- 
plied to those of Niagara — to those of the Clyde — and to those 
of Montmorency, which Captain Hall declares, with some as- 
perity, to be "truly contemptible." He saw one of the cre- 
vasses or breaches in the bank of the Mississippi. "There was 
something peculiarly striking in this casual stream — a mere drop 
from the Great Mississippi, whirh in many other countries might 
almost have claimed the name of a river" Yet we have no 
word to distinguish this river from the Cam or the Isis. 

When Sir William Jones went to India, he did not think of 
looking for the Poetry of that region amongst the English re- 
sidents at Calcutta or Bombay. His remarks, perhaps, will il- 
lustrate what is meant: 

*' If we allow the natural objects with which the Arabs are 
perpetually conversant to be sublime and beautiful, our next 
step must be to confess, that their comparisons, metaphors, and 
allegories are so likewise, for an allegory is a string of meta- 
phors, a metaphor is a short simile, and the finest similes are 
drawn from natural objects." (Essay on the Poetry of the East- 
ern Nations.) "These comparisons, many of which, would 
seem forced in our idioms, have undoubtedly a great delicacy in 
theirs." (lb.) " // is not sufficient that a nation have a ge- 
nius for poetry, unless they have the advantage of a rich and 
beautiful language, that their expressions may be worthy of their 
sentiments; the Arabians have this advantage also, in a high de- 
gree; their language is expressive, strong, sonorous, and the 
most copious, perhaps, in the world; for, as almost every tribe 
had many words appropriate to itself, the poets, for the con- 
venience of their measures, or sometimes for their singular 
beauty, made use of them all, and as the poems became popu- 
lar, these words were by degrees incorporated with the whole 
languageP { lb.) " We are apt to censure the oriental style, 
for being so full of metaphors, taken from the sun and moon; 



59 

this is ascribed by some to the bad taste of the Asiatics; but 
they do not reflect, that every nation has a set of iinnges^ and 
expressions peculiar to itself, which arise from the difference 
of its climate, manners, and history." (lb.) 

It is idle for foreigners to ask, good-naturedly, why we do not 
naturalize such Indian words, as seem most capable of civiliza- 
tion. Even supposing a vocabulary to have existed, and to be 
preserved, sufficiently copious, yet it is evident that, in order to 
be at all effective in composition, the language employed must 
promptly awaken ideas previously existing in the mind. A 
French poet would be laughed at, were he to introduce the 
%vords "comfort," '^ home," &c., and inform his readers, in a 
note, that Englishmen attach a peculiar and untranslatable mean- 
ing to them. People read to be pleasurably excited, and not to 
be told that the language used — whether Greek, or Latin, or Iro- 
quois — ought to make a vivid impression. Such is the invin- 
cible difficulty on the subject, that even the words, *' Ohio," 
*' Mississippi," &c,, do not recall to us the happily descriptive 
meaning, which they are said to convey in the original. No 
language but their native one, can with the mass of readers com- 
mand that rapid and unbroken interest, on which the success of 
every work of the imagination so essentially depends. 

Science, Philosophy, Law, Medicine, are of all tongues. New- 
ton's Principia, or Bacon's Novum Organum, may be read quite 
as well in Latin as in English, and, indeed, some of the most 
precious treasures of English thought are to be found in the for- 
mer. It is to Poetry that each language points for the trophies 
of its power. Now that of America does not, as Sir William 
Jones expresses it, " arise" from the characteristics of the coun- 
try, and when complaint is made of the absence of any thing 
peculiar— distinctive — in our Literature, why may we not be, 
good-naturedly, suffered to suggest that we employ a medium 
of thought, and of description, appropriated, irrevocably and 
jealousl}'^, in the reader's memory to the chef-iTceuvres of the 
English muse? He has a vague expectation of finding some- 
thing entirely new, wild, and startling in an American book, 
and is quite disappointed when he can trace the influence of the 
great masters of the common language. Our authors arc very 
much in the predicament of the preacher, one of whose perverse 
auditors used to exclaim " that's Tillotson," " that 's Blair," 
when any part of the discourse brought to his mind a passage 
in either of those great divines. Should brother Jonathan get 
vexed, and say something petulant, he is sure to be told, as in 
the finale of the story referred to, " that's your own." 

Surely there is nothing very arrogant or offensive in these re- 
veries, in which many Americans have, undoubtedly, indulged. 
They do not apply exclusively, it is obvious, to the English lan- 
guage. Yet Captain Hall contrives to discover in them an ab- 



00 

surd and rancorous antipathy to the **very name" of our mo- 
ther tongue. 

He found the Americans very taciturn — rather a novel charge 
against them, for every body has heard of Dr. Franklin's story 
as to the necessity of prefacing an inquiry as to the road, by an 
account of yourself and your business. Mr. De Roos remarks 
on those whom he met in the public conveyances — <' Their 
thirst for information might be construed, by a person disposed 
to criticize, into an inquisitiveness bordering upon imperti- 
nence." Captain Hall, too, found his fellow-travellers obliging 
and communicative — they often turn out "very intelligent per- 
sons, who gave us much information that was quite new," &c. 
At Stockbridge, he says, it was " my pleasure as well as my 
business to get acquainted with as many of the inhabitants as I 
could. This was an easy task, as they were universally as kind 
and obliging as I had found their countrymen elsewhere." 

He declares, to be sure, uith a sneer, as to these same peo- 
ple, that he found none of that " high-mindedness" which had 
been '* rung in his ears," but as he has omitted to inform us how 
he expected this quality to be manifested we can give his re- 
mark no definite answer. The circumstance from which he in- 
fers a taciturn disposition is, that people, at the common table 
of the hotels, despatched their meals very hastily, and seemed 
not inclined to enter into *' chat" with each other. If Captain 
Hall ever travelled in England in a stage coach, or a steam-boat, 
or a packet, let him recollect whether he found his companions 
disposed to fall promptly, into easy conversation. Even at the 
first baiting place did he discover a communicative temper whilst 
awaiting the summons to return to the coach? Now the busy 
people whom he saw at these tables, meet each other under pre- 
cisely the same circumstances, except that they have not previ- 
ously been shut up in a coach together, and are not to resume 
their places at the conclusion of the meal. We venture to say, 
if Captain Hall were travelling from Edinburgh to London, and 
whilst snatching his hasty breakfast, some inquisitive American 
were to try to " draw him out " — to request him to talk, and 
laugh, and exhibit himself — that a very brief, and not a very 
good-humoured, reply would be given. In England, instead of 
meeting at a common table, each individual has his i^partment 
or his box in the coffee-house. Take down the partitions, or 
throw open the folding doors, and there would not be a whit 
more sociability amongst the parties. At the hotel in New 
York, "those persons who chose to incur the additional expense 
of a private parlour, might have their meals separately." He 
chose to go to the common breakfast table, in order to "get ac- 
quainted with some of the natives," but "our familiar designs" 
were frustrated by the silence of the company. Again, at Cat- 
skill, he was present at a militia training, and " the light com- 



6i 

pany of one of the regiments " being dismissed to take some 
refreshment, he "joined the party, in hopes of being able to get 
some chat with their citizen soldiers — but one and all, officers 
and men, snatched up their dinner in such a hurry, that in less 
than fifteen minutes I found myself with only one person in the 
room. This gentleman, perceiving me to be a stranger, and I 
suppose looking rather adrift, I am sure I felt so, introduced 
himself to me, and was afterwards very kind and useful in show- 
ing me the place, and in explaining many things which 1 could 
make nothing of alone." 

From such data Captain Hall has drawn his conclusion! 

It is curious enough, that, long before seeing his book, we had 
been led to seek for some reason to account for what seemed to 
us the greater degree of reserve in England than in the United 
States, amongst those who are casually thrown together. We 
had, very innocently, set it down to the circumstance, that in 
the former country, the distinctions of rank are well defined, 
and are often most jealously maintained, where a danger is ap- 
prehended from proximity of running the lines into each other. 
This causes a mutual disinclination to make the first advance — 
in most cases, it is presumed, less from pride than from a shy 
apprehension of encountering coldness, or an actual repulse. 

As to the state of Manners in the United States, the tourist- 
has confined himself to certain dark, and seemingly very omi- 
nous, hints, to which it is, of course, quite impossible to ofier 
any reply. All argument upon such a subject is necessarily 
idle, since it must rest on assertion, and a character for refine- 
ment is not to be established by clamorous pretensions to it. So 
far as he has furnished a glimpse at facts, they seem to indicate 
the general diffiision of a spirit of gentleness — of kindness — of 
a wish to oblige. In all the various modes of public convey- 
ance, he was particularly struck with the absence of any stiff, 
brutal selfishness, and with the " anxiety to accommodate the 
ladies by changing places, or making any arrangements that were 
possible." This is not a trivial circumstance, when it is so uni- 
versal and remarkable, as to be deemed, by a foreigner, charac- 
teristic. People may be profusely hospitable from vanity, or 
from a mere love of company, but a quiet cheerful waiver of 
personal convenience is a very different matter. Following 
Captain Hall amongst another description of persons — into the 
social circles which were opened to him — he has, without in- 
tending so to do, paid a compliment, the value of which will not 
fail to be appreciated, by all those who are truly well-bred. We 
never saw or heard of the American Chesterfield, which is no- 
ticed in these volumes, but we well remember, that, in the ori- 
ginal work, his lordship lays it down, as the fundamental maxim 
of good-breeding, that there is no mediutn between perfect po- 
liteness and a duel. Now, while Captain Hall represents him- 



62 

self as perpetually traversing the intermediate space, vibrating 
between the two points, uttering rude remarks, some of which 
are given whilst others are suppressed, as too gross for the press; 
he admits, that he never saw a citizen of the republic show by 
word, tone, or expression of countenance, towards either sex, 
that he had lost that self-possession which is, every where, the 
great and indispensable characteristic of a Gentleman. So far, 
therefore, Captain Hall has established the decided superiority 
of the American over himself, and over any society of which he 
may be considered the representative. 

There is an air of extreme puerility, of which he will himself 
be ashamed " on cool reflection," in the introduction of extracts 
from this alleged American volume. If the existence of a book 
reprobating certain vulgar practices, be deemed sufficient proof 
of their general prevalence, amongst persons having claims to 
respectability, then America might draw the same inference as 
to England, from the publication of the original work; and even 
the Decalogue or Whole Duty of Man, be deemed evidence of 
universal depravity. In every nobleman's library in the king- 
dom, will be found his Lordship's Letters, anxiously depre- 
cating practices infinitely more revolting than any which the 
American writer has subjected to his criticism. It would be 
very rash, however, to conclude that every Englishman " eats 
with his knife, to the great danger of his mouth, picks his teeth 
with his fork, and puts his spoon, which has been in his throat 
twenty times, into the dishes again," or that he, " has strange 
tricks and gestures, such as snuffing up the nose, making faces, 
putting his fingers in his nose, or blowing it, and looking after- 
wards in his handkerchief, so as to make the company sick." 
Yet, Captain Hall has led us to believe, that the "American 
Chesterfield," is graphically descriptive of the state of manners 
in the United States. Not to speak of New York, which is the 
especial object of his eulogium, does he mean to say, that he was 
annoyed by such practices at Boston, "with whose manners, 
appearance, and style altogether, we were much taken," or in 
" the agreeable society of Philadelphia," or the " agreeable and 
intelligent society of Baltimore?" The reader must infer that 
he was, for after asserting the " too great fidelity " of the stric- 
tures, he strengthens the impression which he desires to make 
as to their general applicability, by excepting indecorum in the 
Churches and Courts of Justice. 

We might, perhaps, render the unfairness of this conduct 
more obvious, by referring to a recent number of a periodical 
work, conducted under distinguished auspices. In the New 
Monthly Magazine, will be found a series of papers of which 
the purpose is to ridicule the prevailing vices of behaviour; and 
the necessity for the writer's labours was suggested to him, he 
says, by what actually fell under his own observation. It can- 



63 

not be supposed that this poignant irony would have found a 
place, but from the hope of the illustrious Editor, that the nu- 
merous and fashionable patrons of the Miscellany might be be- 
nefited by it. The following are amongst the maxims. 

48. If you meet a female in the street, never give her the in- 
side, unless it be her right. 

58. Re orthodox in politics as well as in religion. Tell an 
American that republics must end in monarchy, and their ca- 
reer be short. Tell the Russians, they are rogues and savages 
for making war upon the gentle Turks, because you sell them 
goods, and it spoils your traffic. 

61 If you enter a drawing-room before dinner, a little time 
too early, and find yourself vis a-vis, with an unlucky visiter 
as forlorn as yourself, do not utter a word. The chances are, 
nine out of ten, he will not speak first, that is, if he be a true 
Briton. Stare at him as hard as you can. 

62. If you meet a lady in society, old or young, married or 
single, who equiils you in argument, or rises superior to the 
thousand and one automatons disgorged monthly from fashiona- 
ble boarding-schools, report her a bas bleu to your male ac- 
quaintances, and warn her own sex to shun her. 

80. When you dine at a public dinner, always take your seat 
opposite a favourite dish. Carve it yourself, and select the 
choicest bits, then leave it to your right hand neighbour to help 
the rest of the company. 

86. Always stick your napkin in your button-hole at the din- 
ner-table, if you admit such French superfluities at all. Eat 
with the sharp edge of your knife towards your mouth; forks 
won't take up gravy. 

89. When seated at dinner, between two agreeable ladies, di- 
rect your conversation solely to the gentleman opposite you, at 
the other side of the table. 

99. Always be positive when you have a lurking conscious- 
ness of being wrong; it will give you the reputation of firm- 
ness. 

100. Never leave a dispute to be settled by arbitration; if you 
are rich always appeal to law, especially if your opponent be 
poor. The lawyers will manage for you long before the case 
gets up to the Lords, and perhaps secure your rival in banco- 
regis for expenses. In an arbitration, the case may be decided 
against you in a twink'ing. It is a capital thing that justice and 
a long purse are sworn brothers; besides monied men should 
have some advantage in society 

163. If you cannot get left out from the list of jurymen under 
Mr. Peel's late Act, by a bribe to the officer, who makes up the 
papers, and you nre obliged to sit, always do as the Judge tells 
you, especially in cases of libel. 

165. Though you do not care about religion yourself, it is fit- 



64 

ting to have a decent external zeal for it, and not to allow others 
to attack it. Imitate a learned Judge, who, upon a man being 
tried before him for blasphemy, and, in defence, abusing the 
clergy, exclaimed to a friend sitting on the bench with him- 
*' I 'li be d — d if I will sit and hear the Christian Religion re- 
viled in this manner." 

178. When your daughters can translate "Comment vous 
portez vous," and interlard their conversation after the mode of 
governesses, vvith interjections in that tongue — when they can 
sing the words of an Italian song, the meaning of which they 
do not comprehend, and strum a tune out of time, it is a • ertain 
proof of a fashionable education, and that they are ripe for so- 
ciety; proclaim them adepts in tasteful acquirements, and cut 
all who will not implicitly credit your lie. 

182. If you ride on a coach in rain, manage to drain your 
umbrella in your neighbour's neck, it may be agreeable to him. 
If you ride down Bond Street on a muddy day, ride smartly, 
close to the pavement, that you may bemire the passengers. If 
you can find a vacant place in front of a short person in the 
Opera Pit, more especially if that person be a female, take it 
immediately; you do not obstruct the hearing. If you hold the 
newspaper in a coffee-house, keep it until you have spelled all 
the advertisements twice over, because another is waiting to look 
at it. Order your carriage to halt at every place where there is 
a swept crossing for the benefit of foot passengers. Tell every 
tradesman whose shop you enter that his goods are bad, his 
prices an imposition, and you will buy nothing, though he has 
been two hours trying to satisfy your caprice. Make your 
coachman drive hard, and if he drives over a child or old wo- 
man, charge him with carelessness, and acting against orders. 
If you wear an umbrella-bonnet at a public meeting or exhibi- 
tion, don't take it off, that the person behind you may see too. 
In short, never mind annoying others, if you can keep free of 
annoyance yourself. 

Captain Hall will doubtless think it the result of American 
prejudice, when we smile at the idea of his becoming a critic 
on manners. There is something about him too sharp, angular, 
and brusque — a hasty, rapid sort of disregard of the feelings 
and opinions of others. Would he act in London as he repre- 
sents himself to have done in the United States, elevating his 
voice, and heating himself up into offensive remarks, while all 
around, according to his own showing, maintained the most per- 
fect composure? If not, here is the most decisive proof of vul- 
garity; for no gentleman approaches any society with less of self- 
command than he does, what he deems the very highest. Other- 
wise, the decorum preserved is the result, not of principle, but 
of awe. It springs not from a constant sense of what is due to 
one-self, but from a calculation that it is not politic or safe to 



65 . 

indulge native petulance.* He had no more right to be rude 
to an American lady than to the King. In his speech, at Brock- 
ville in Upper Canada, (vol, i. p. 368,) he says, " For example, 
if I were to take it into my head, like Tom Thumb, to swear I 
would be a rebel, and decline his Majesty's farther employ- 
ment, I don't conceive the King would be quite so ill off, as I 
should be, were his majesty, on the other hand, to signify that 
he had no farther occasion for my services." 

It is very true that an American lady had no power of dis- 
missing him from the service, yet it was not the less unjusti- 
fiable to put on towards her " an expression of countenance" 
at which she " took fire," on account of a remark as to the 
dexterity and intelligence of American stage drivers, and the 
docility of their horses, and this too, when she seems merely 
to have echoed his own language. These circumstances, will 
undoubtedly, make a very unfavourable impression in the Uni- 
ted States, amongst those who looked on with amazement at 
this sort of exhibition, and were reminded of the scene at the 
clachan of Aberfoil, when the young English gentleman, 
Frances Osbaldistone, was so much astonished at seeing the 
Highlanders "snorting and snuffing up the air, after the man- 
ner of their countrymen when working themselves into a pas- 
sion." It will require all their recollection of Sir Charles 
Bagot, and of his amiable successor, Mr. Vaughan, not to 
frame a general hypothesis that the idea conveyed by the word 
" chivalry," is as different in the two countries, as Captain Hall 
supposes its pronunciation to be. 

It is curious how mei'e trifles illustrate the temper and cha- 
racter. Take for example, the altercation with the schoolmis- 
tress at New York. We all remember the story of the visit of 
the late king to one of the public schools in England, when 
the pedagogue accompanied him through the different classes, 
preserving a most magisterial air — perhaps wearing his hat — 
but at the door, dropped his voice into an earnest entreaty to 
be forgiven — '' for if these boys thought there was a greater 
man than myself in the kingdom, I could never manage them." 
The king good humouredly laughed, and assented to the pro- 
bable justice of the remark. But our Captain, not only beards 
the good schoolmistress" about his eternal "chivalry,"! but 

* The sort of undei-bread, confident, air of assurance referred to, pei'vades tlie 
volumes. It is difficult to give examples of what consists rather in a general 
flippancy prompting to expressions such as that at Boston, whither many letters 
of introduction were taken, " So we merely wrote our address upon each letter, 
sent out tke whole batch (doubtless through the Post Office, for he travelled 
without a servant) and sat still to watch the result." 

f There is a very suspicious air of preparation, it may be remarked, about the 
whole of this scene. Captain Hall calls for the reading of a particular poem; 
uses afterwards a contemptuous "tone" that wounds the feelings of the " good 
schoolmistress," and induces her to ask an explanation which enables him to vent 

9 



. 66 

chuckles at the mutiny he had raised, ^' I shrugged my shoul- 
ders, and said no more of course, but was much amused af- 
terwards, by observing; that when one of the girls in the class 
in question, a little sprightly, wicked-looking, red-haired las- 
sie, came in turn to read the Poem, she gave to both the words 
their true interdicted pronunciation. She herself did not dare 
to look up, while guilty of this piece of insubordination; but 
I could see each of the other girls peeping archly out of the 
corners of their eyes in the direction of the mistress, antici- 
pating probably, a double dose of good counsel afterwards for 
their pains." Every one but Captain Hall feels that this is 
very silly and vulgar. 

Indeed, throughout these volumes, there is* an unpleasant 
feeling, that vv^e travel with a man who would, in real life, 
make a very disagreeable companion. He cares not "a fig" 
(to use his own term at Brockyille) for any body, he is opi- 

his criticism; and then in his hurried and confident asseveration that Walker's 
Dictionary " Would bear ii.ii! out," we plainly see a man who had made sure of 
his ti-iumph, and was determined not to be balked. He had played into the 
hands of his morning's studies. That he js not very deep in the Dictionaries be- 
comes apparent when he is caught at an impromptu. Thus he remarks, " The 
word for Autumn, in that country, is Fall, aterm happily expressive of tlie fate of 
the leaves, and ivorthy, perhaps, of poetical, if not vulgar, adoption." Now, on 
turning to Johnson, he will find the 13th meaning of Fall to be autumn; the fall 
of the leaf, the lime when the leaves drop from tlie trees," with an illustration 
from Dryden, which shows that the word was a common and familiar mode of 
designating one of the seasons of the year (" last fall.") He speaks of the ex- 
pression to " subdue" the earth as a local one, yet, w^ithout I'eferringto the mo- 
dern poets he may find quoted by Johnson — 

" Be fruitful and replenish the earth and subdue it 
" Nor is it unwholesome to subdue the land 

By often exercise, and where before 

You broke the eai'th again to plow." 

He is surprised that what he considered a jug," should be called a "pitcher," 
whereas the New York Chambermaid, was right, for "jug" has reference to a 
gibbous form, carried fai-ther than is found in the persons or earthen vessels of 
tlie Americans. Doubtless the poor girl could have exclaimed with Dryden— 

" H3'las may drop his pitcher — none will cry; 
Not if he drown himself." 

But to return to Captain Hall and the schoolmistress. The suspicion of foul 
]-)lay is mvich confirmed by what occurs in another volume. At New Haven, 
he fell in with Noah Webster, the author of the Diction;uy, and straightway thej' 
are found harping on this same " chivalry." True, the toiu-ist modestly veils 
his own share of the philological discussion, by saying generally, that he asked 
the lexicogTapher " what he proposed to do with those words which were gene- 
i-ally pronounced differently in the two countries." But it is impossible not to see 
that ttie very word which forthwith makes its appearance was of the Captain's sug- 
gestion. We can almost hear our kind-hearted old gentleman exclaim, " Good 
Heavens! — Is it possible that you, a naval officer, and a man of the world, can 
have had time to dive tlius into Dictionaries?" tlie whole affair irresistibly re- 
minds us of the man in the Vicar of Wakefield, with his single scrap of 
learning about cosmogony; and at New Haven it is difficult to avoid saj-ing 
aloud, with the good Vicar, " I beg pardon for interrupting so much learning, 
but I think I have heard this before. Pray is not your name Ej>hrjum Jenkinson. " 



67 

nionative, conceited, eloquent. Then, I warrant, such a 
fuss about his place, and his baggage, and eternal jars with the 
chambermaids, one passage in reference to this last matter has 
been already cited; but there is another so characteristic that 
it must not be omitted. 

It occurs at page 142 of his first volume. He is far away 
in the western part of the State of New York. <' One day,'^ 
this is evermore the prologue to his tales of distress,) " One 
day, I was rather late for breakfast, and as there was no water 
in my jug, or pitcher, as they call it, I set off post haste, half- 
shaved, half-dressed, and more than half-vexed, (i. e. in a great 
passion,) in quest of water, like a seaman on short allowance, 
hunting for rivulets, on some unknown coast. I went up 
stairs and down stairs, and in the course of my researches into 
half-a-dozen different apartments, might have stumbled on 
some lady'' s chamber, as the song says, which considering the 
plight I IV as in, would have been awkward enough." Now, 
on behalf of that very respectable class of females, the cham- 
bermaids of the western part of the State of New York, we 
have a word to say. From the antecedent description it would 
seem that the girl here aimed at, though not named, performed 
the duties of what is called "a maid of all work." Then it 
is evident, that Captain Hall was himself to blame, for lying 
in bed until she was called off to wait upon the breakfast table. 
That he is rather indolent and aristocratic in his habits, he 
has obligingly informed us. Thus on a subsequent occasion, 
he says, with a pleasant wit, "there is certainly more satisfac- 
tion in taking one's morning nap before setting out, than in 
rising with the stupid cocks, who have nothing else to do but 
crow," and adds, " We lay snoozing very snugly, to our good 
landlady's infinite surprise." But to return to the defence of 
the New York chambermaid. . Captain Hall says, he was 
*' /jtf //"-shaved. " How was this.'' without water? Scarcely. 
Why did he commence? Above all, why go over the house, 
in a condition to offend any female he might meet? Why not put 
on his clothes? But for his own comparative sluggishness. Cap- 
tain Hall ivoiild probably have found in these chambers, ladies, 
he knew not, and he cared not whom. The English gentle- 
man will scarcely believe without referring to the volume, that 
we are serious, in stating, that this disgusting trash is to be 
found in it. 

The truth, as usual, is to be gathered from attending to the 
context. The maid referred to, was probably such a one as he 
describes, at page 121 of the same volume, " a pretty young 
woman apparently the daughter of the master of the house." 
At the next page but one, and whilst in the same region of 
country, he says, "By the way of Ice; this great luxury we 
found every where in profusion, even in the cottages; and an 



60 

ice-pit near the house, appears to be a matter of course. The 
7nischief is, that one is tempted, in consequence, to drink too 
much water, and this to a stranger, entering a limestone 
country, is not a harmless indulgence by any means.'^ Thus, 
then, the whole matter is explained. The poor girl put in his 
room, over night, as much of the liquid as she had found suf- 
ficient for any former traveller; but the Captain, allured by its 
coolness, guzzles away all night at the limestone water, and no 
wonder he was not ready, betimes, for his breakfast. This ex- 
planation, is due to a young woman who has been slandered 
behind her back, in a strange country. Did Captain Hall sup- 
pose, that this " pretty young wom.an, apparently the daughter 
of the master of the house," was to jog him by the shoulder 
*' Do you want more water?" Would it have been decent or 
becoming on her part! Nay, the girl was perfectly right, in 
even keeping out of the way of this thirsty soul, when, accord- 
ing to his own showing, his appearance would have shocked 
a modest female. Here, then, we find a gentleman, going about 
the rooms of a house, expecting every moment to meet females, 
and conscious that his person was indecently exposed. Yet 
this refined personage is perpetually hinting, that he has some 
ominous disclosures to make, about what he saw in America. 
"I might easily describe in what the difference consists, be- 
tween American and European manners. But there is always, 
I think, more or less, a breach of confidence in such descrip- 
tions, however generally, or however delicately expressed." 

We confess, that the delicacy of this course of conduct is 
quite lost on us. Surely it would be both more useful, and 
more respectful to speak out plainly, so as to give us a chance 
of reformation, than to indulge in general contemptuous hints 
which operate abroad much more successfully in the way of 
disparagement, while to ourselves they are more galling. He 
tells us, in another, place, that " the rules of behaviour are not 
yet settled." As he has thus wrapt up himself in mystery, it 
is necessary to grope after the truth as well as we can, and as- 
suming Captain Hall himself to.be the representative of what he 
calls European manners, to glean from his book, what he pro- 
bably deems the disadvantageous points of comparison. Thus, 
for example, we have already seen that the leading distinction 
between his own manner, and that of the Americans, is found 
in their habitual courtesy, gentleness, and self-possession. So 
much for the drawing-room, and the dinner-table. As to their 
deportment in country inns, he will certainly find few Ameri- 
can gentlemen disposed to be his imitators. It is not their way 
to run about a house, half-naked, into the sleeping apartments 
of females, on the flimsy pretence of looking for iced water. 
In their simple code this would be held altogether ungenteel. 
It seems that the gentlemen in Canada, carry this indecent 



69 

exposure of the person to an extent, which it would be minc- 
ing matters to call merely barefaced. We are indebted to Cap- 
tain Hall for the following anecdote. (Vol. i. p. 246.) " At 
this critical stage of our progress, when, I suspect, we only 
wanted a good excuse for turning back, but were deterred from 
saying so by the mere fact of its being hazardous to advance, 
we observed a portly-looking horseman approaching us from 
the marsh. In reply to our interrogatories, as to the state of 
the roads farther on, he shook his head, and assured us, they 
were much worse than any we had yet seen. ' The truth 
is,' added he, chuckling at his own prowess, ' I had myself 
some considerable distance to ride, through a place where it 
was so deep that the water came far above my knees.' On 
hearing this assertion, our eyes naturally glanced, incredu- 
lously, to his netber garments, which were perfectly sleek, 
clean and dry. '0!' cried he, guessing our thoughts, and 
smacking his thigh with his band, ' I was obliged to take off 
these articles (naming them,) and by ha7iging them, over my 
shoulders I did very well, as you perceive.' " Captain Hall 
seems to have struck up an intimacy at once with this gentle- 
man, whom he familiarly designates afterwards, (p. 247,) as 
*'our fat friend," the well known phrase of Brummel. A lit- 
tle further on (p. 265,) he is led into the remark, " In every 
part of Canada we found the inhabitants speaking English, and 
acting and looking like Englishmen, without any discernible 
difference. At the other extremity of the continent Jje was 
equally taken with the Creek Indians. He regrets (vol. iii. 
p. 296) not having executed sketches of them with the Came- 
ra Lucida, " but until it was all over this never once occurred 
to me, and thus I let slip the only opportunity which the whole 
journey, I may say, my whole life presented, of drawing these 
interesting savages in a leisurely way." Their dress was that 
of the naked Pict, having nothing about the body, but " a small, 
square, dark coloured cloth, about one quarter as big as a pocket 
handkerchief, tied by a slender cord round the middle." But 
enough of this. We have not the slightest fear that Captain 
Hall's evil example in the State of New York will have any 
effect on the sober decencies of the inhabitants of that moral 
Commonwealth, nor will they ever believe that the people in 
the mother country are arrayed, as Captain Hall would lead 
them to infer, altogether after the fashion of our Jirst parents 
in the old family Bibles. 

One complaint is preferred against the society of the United 
States, of rather a singular character. He says, " Positively I 
never once, during the whole period I was in that country, saw 
any thing approaching within many degrees to what we should 
call a Flirtation.'^ It scarce befits our gravity to enter on a 
vindication of the young people from such a charge, and we 



10 

must refer him to what has been said by one of his brother 
officers, the Hon. Mr. De Roos. 

" In American society, there is far less formality and restraint, 
than is found in that of Europe; but I must observe, that, not- 
withstanding the freedom of intercourse which is allowed, the 
strictest propriety prevails, both in conversation and demea- 
nour." "I had an opportunity of witnessing an instance of 
the cordial and unreserved communication which exists," &c. 

*' The manners of the women are so easy and natural," &c. 

The difference between the two witnesses is, probably, ex- 
plained by the circumstance, that one, from his birth, has had 
access to the society of a Metropolis, whilst Captain Hall tells 
us that he has " been all his life at sea, or knocking about," 
&c, (vol. iii. p. 431.) One whose existence has thus been 
spent, either on board a man-of-war, or in "knocking," or 
being knocked " about," cannot have spent much tim.e, we 
would fain hope, with the softer sex. Of course he has had his 
frolicks like other young men, but they have been at Sheer- 
ness or Spithead, and as these places live on the seafaring 
classes, it is probably no difficult matter for a brisk young fel- 
low to get introduced, and to find, even in reputable families, 
young people well inclined to a fine game at romps. In Ree's 
Cyclopasdia, under the head Portland, we find an account of 
what is called, in that part of England, " Portland custom," 
which must afford rare sport to the young middies; and it 
accounts, by the way, for a similar practice said to prevail in 
some parts of the backwoods of America, having, doubtless, 
been carried thither by some emigrants from this very quarter. 
To one dwelling on such free and easy reminiscences, it is quite 
natural that there should appear, in the United States, " the 
most respectful and icy propriety upon all occasions, when 
young people of different sexes were brought together, (vol. 
iii. p. 150.) It seems that this Flirtation is "a sedulous and 
exclusive attention paid to one person above all others." It is 
not " attachment," but it " borders closely upon it:" " it is an 
incipient interest sometimes felt by one, sometimes shared by 
both." It " may be fanned into a flame, or be allowed to ex- 
pire," &c. The Captain cautions us, that " the, practice of ex- 
pressing such emotions, and many others of a sim,ilar charac- 
ter should be habitual, and not contingent." Truly, at the 
present day, in England, even in the seaports, one of these in- 
sinuating Billy Taylors, thus in the habit of " discovering his 
mind," would be very apt to find himself laid by the heels, be- 
fore a court and jury. It is held that a promise of marriage may 
be inferred from circumstances, and it would stand the cul- 
prit in little stead, we suspect, to declare it was only a way he 
had. To be serious, if Captain Hall never enjoyed an oppor- 
tunity of mixing much with people of refinement, yet a little 



71 

reflection might have taught him that it isthe peculiar office of 
good breeding to discountenance this sort of " sedulous and 
exclusive" attention — this hanging about a young lady, and en- 
grossing her attention, instead of suffering her to feel that each 
member of the company has an equal claim on the contribution 
which she can offer to society. This pairing off in corners — 
these half courtships — render the country-gathering so import- 
ant an event to sly daughters, and match-making mothers; but 
we suspect that such an exhibition would be deemed quite as 
vulgar in London as in New York. By way of illustration, we 
may suggest, that had he witnessed any such scene, he would 
probably have deemed it intrusive and unkind, to solicit an in- 
troduction to the young lady — perhaps the most interesting per- 
son in the room, — thinking that, according to the sailor phrase, 
''three spoils company." 

The ingenuity of the Captain in framing an hypothesis is re- 
markably manifested at Stockbridge. He attended a cattle- 
show at that place, but the day was a most unfavourable one, 
*' all was discomfort, and it made one feel cold and damp even 
to look from the ivindoiv at the drenched multitude." He 
adds, *'it was truly melancholy to see the poor people's best 
clothes, and other finery destroyed, and all their amusements 
marred. The gay flags, instead of waiving over the heads of 
the lads and lasses of the neighbourhood, hung dripping down 
to the very mud," &c. "Shortly after the ploughing match was 
ended, the day cleared up, and I expected to see some of that 
merriment set a going which I had been taught to consider as 
the appropriate, and almost necessary accompaniment to such a 
meeting. In particular, I hoped to see the women tripping 
out,^^ &c. So far from this being the case, "the wom.en trudged 
home." After a hasty dinner, to which they sat down at one 
o'clock, they proceeded to the church to hear an oration, and 
he describes minutely, the process employed to secure him a 
" good seat. It was obvious, from a hundred things, that they 
wished to treat strangers with all distinction." The females 
had previously been provided with places in the Church. From 
these simple facts. Captain Hall draws two inferences: — 1st. 
That there is a sombre gloomy temper in the country; an indis- 
position to merriment; the people won't laugh; " they appear 
wofully ignorant of the difficult art of being gracefully idle." 
2nd. That the women are sedulously set apart from the men on 
all public occasions. " At Stockbridge, it is true, a considera- 
rable number of women were present at the oration, but they 
were carefully placed on one side of the Church." 

Now we humbly conceive that the facts stated by Captain 
Hall furnish us with the true explanation of both the circum- 
stances which appeared so inexplicable; and he knows the fun- 
damental rule of philosophy, that no more causes are to be sought 



72 

for than will sufficiently explain the phenomena. With regard 
to the first, it strikes us, that as the poor women had had all 
their finery " destroyed" and themselves draggle-tailed in the 
mud, while Captain Hall was gazing from the window, it was 
quite a sufficient reason why they should make their way home 
in order to dry themselves, particularly as they had to take 
their places, at one o'clock, to hear the oration. 2nd. As to 
the arrangement at the church, there seems to be an equally ob- 
vious explanation. If precautions were necessary to secure 
places for strangers, it is quite natural that some arrangement 
should be made to provide for the convenience of the ladies. 
Indeed Captain Hall tells us, " It is a rule we saw universal- 
ly observed in America, never to think how the men shall fare 
till every female has been fully accommodated." They were 
temporarily separated from the men, on the same principle that 
they occupy the front seats at the Theatre. Such seems to be 
the simple explanation of the mystery. Instead of being ad- 
mitted by tickets, given indiscriminately, a passage into the 
Church, previous to the ceremonies, was allowed only to la- 
dies; and to prevent their being pressed upon or incommoded, 
a particular part of the building was assigned to them. 

At another cattle-show Address, no ladies were present, yet 
he declares it was one " which the most delicate minded per- 
son on earth might have listened to." He had just before re- 
marked, that " the numerous pens where the bullocks and 
sheep were enclosed, afforded a high treat from the variety of 
the breeds, and the high condition of the animals exposed." 
His own language, negativing any indelicacy in the topics dis- 
cussed, suggests the obvious possibility of the introduction, 
amongst these plain country people, of practical details illustra- 
tive of the good breeding of the cattle rather than of the orator; 
and it would seem quite as well, therefore, for ladies to keep 
away. It happens, that, just at this moment, we are less in the 
humour to quarrel with this fastidiousness, from having wit- 
nessed the pitiable distress of the very modest and learned gen- 
tleman who conducted the late inquiry into the case of Davies, 
an alleged lunatic. The following paragraph from the Times, 
of December 22, adverts to what fell under our observation. 
"The ladies present, to whom it had been several times inti- 
mated that they had better withdraw, persisted in keeping their 
places. The Commissioners at last observed, that as all hints 
were lost upon the ladies, it would not be necessary to consult 
their feelings any farther." We certainly prefer to this effron- 
tery even the shyness of the Massachusetts females. 

It is curious to note the trivial circumstances on which the 
fate of nations, as well as of individuals, often depends. At the 
cattle-show, Captain Hall was lounging about, '' when sudden- 
ly the sound of a fiddle struck upon my ear," (vol. ii. p. 152,) 



73 

iie ^^ ran eagerly to the spot," (ib. ) but found no women there, 
and he makes up his mind that, with us, females do not, as 
mothers, wives, and sisters, enjoy, in the depths of domestic 
privacy, that salutary influence which they possess " in more 
fortunately arranged communities," and which, thank God, we 
know to be no where more happily exercised than in the United 
States. Had there been in the booth, dancing to the fiddle, a 
single female, even of loose character, the whole aspect of the 
book might have been changed! As it is, we may, perhaps, 
in vain remind him, as a kind of set oiT against the adventure 
of the fiddle, that there is no incident in the early life of Wash- 
ington more familiar to our youth, or deemed more character- 
istic, than his prompt abandonment of the Navy, at the instance 
of a widowed mother. 

The Captain says, '* in England, no fair, no place of public 
amusement, no election.) no Court of justice, no place, in 
short, public or private, is ever thought complete without a cer- 
tain and moat influential proportion oifanale interest being 
^lixedwiih its duties or its pleasures." When he asserts, dis- 
paragingly, that there is nothing of this in the United States, 
we must ask him for an explanation. Let us take, for exam- 
ple, the legislative bodies of the two countries. These are the 
places to which females, one would suppose, might resort with 
the least fear of being annoyed, or of embarrassing by their pre- 
sence the more sensitive of the other sex. Now, how does this 
matter stand in Great Britain? The annual session of Parlia- 
ment, in London, is there the only scene of this description, 
and it happens that from both Houses ladies are excluded. We 
must explain. There is a prohibition never, we believe, de- 
parted from, against their appearance in the gallery, or on the 
floor of the House of Commons; but, by a special order fi'om 
the Speaker, they may be admitted to a sort of loft above the 
House, whence they gaze down through a grating kept open for 
the purpose of ventilation, the scope of vision being about suf- 
ficient to enable them to catch a glimpse of the Speaker's wig. 
In order to enjoy this luxury, each lady has to thrust her head 
into one of the apertures of a kind of sentry-box which encom- 
passes the ventilator, and to one below they must look like so 
many rogues in a pillory. All this time they breathe an air pro- 
ceeding from the heated lungs in the small, close, and crowd- 
ed room beneath. So jealous is the "separation of the sexes," 
that the officer, though sufficiently courteous, is in the fid- 
gets when a gentleman manifests the least reluctance to quit the 
fair object of his charge. In the other House the arrangement 
is still more churlish. Formerly, ladies were admitted on the 
special introduction of a Peer; but since the debate on the Ca- 
tholic question, there has been a new rule forbidding even this; 
and the only mode now for them to obtain access, is bv an ar- 

10 



rangement with the officer who has charge of a small spot neat 
the door, shrouded by a red curtain. The lady creeps, stealth- 
ily, under cover, lest her good-natured introducer should be 
subjected to the rebuke of the Chancellor. Captain Hall knows, 
perfectly well, that, in both Houses of Congress, ample provi- 
sion is made for the accommodation of ladies who constantly at- 
tend, without any ridiculous, and somewhat derogatory, effort 
at concealment. The same is the case in all the State Legis' 
latures. 

As to the Courts of justice, he surely does not mean to as- 
sert that it is customary, in London, for ladies to attend them. 
Such is not the fact, and few who take up the newspaper ac- 
counts of jury trials will wish, that their wives, daughters, or 
sisters, had been present to join in the " laugh" with which the 
report is usually interlarded, or to have been desired to with- 
draw on account of apprehended indelicacy. It certainly is not 
fashionable for ladies in America to be present on such occa- 
sions, unless the nature of the case be well known; but in the 
Supreme Court of the United States, sitting as a Court of Er- 
ror, he must have daily seen the gay throng in attendance, and 
the careful provision made for their accommodation. If by " a 
certain and most influential portion of female interesf' being 
" mixed" with the " duties" of a court of justice, he refer to 
that kind of influence which brought about the dismissal of 
Lord Chancellor Clarendon, it is very certain we know nothing 
of it. Any other meaning he may have, we have not succeed- 
ed in catching. 

As to Elections, we plead guilty, to being of the number of 
those who rejoice that they abstain from any active interference. 
Surely Captain Hall, after deprecating the prevalence of politi- 
cal discussions amongst us, cannot be serious in regretting that 
the better half of our population should keep aloof from the ir- 
ritating contest. One would think he ought rather to rejoice 
that the fire-side is sacred, and that it affords something to re- 
lieve and soften the bitterness of party spirit. We were cer- 
tainly not much edified, during the last session of Parliament, 
at Petitions from females breathing a language not unlike that 
with which, in former days, they urged the speedy execution 
of the King's Minister.* One thing is very clear; the ladies 

*In the 7th vohime of the Harleian Miscellanj', p. 605, (Ed. of 1811) will be 
found "The retition of the Gentlewomen and Tradesmen's Wives, in and about 
the Citv of London," dehvered to the House of Commons, 4tli February 1641. 
They declare that nothing can go right whilst that arch enemy of our Faith and 
'Eefonnation Ueth in the Tower, yet not receiving his deserved punishment." 
«' The insolencies of the Papists and then* abettors, raiseth a just fear and sus- 
picion of sowing sedition, and breaking out into bloody persecution in this Iving- 
dom,the thoughts of which sad and barbarous events make our tender hearts to 
melt within us." « Our present fears are that unless the blood-thirsty faction 
of the Papists and Prelates be hindered in their designsj" &c. It often stouck 



must either agree with their male relatives on political subjects, 
or differ from them; if the former be the case, their active ex- 
ertions at the polls may well be spared, and if the latter, no 
one, we presume, will deem such exertions a public good. They 
have functions more endearing and appropriate, even out of the 
domestic circle. Captain Hall pays a tribute to the untiring 
and effective zeal of the American ladies, in reference to all 
the institutions sacred to Charity; and this must atone, as far 
as it may, for their absence from Elections. 

We are inclined to lead Captain Hall to the condemnation of 
his querilous temper, as to the complacency with which the 
Americans spoke of their institutions, and their public works: 
we might, perhaps, ask him to account for the parental weakness 
which has devoted so large a portion of these volumes to a lit- 
tle personage, who, however dear to himself, cannot be deemed 
very interesting to the reader. What right has he to eke out 
a two-guinea book, on America, by giving us not only the most 
frivolous details about his own person — his eating and drinking, 
and sleeping and "snoozing," and shaving — but by an abstract 
of the family debate, as to whether he should take his infant 
child with him across the Atlantic, and by introducing long 
passages, of which the following are specimens: — "As I was 
desirous that my child should have it to say, in future years, 
that she had seen this remarkable star, I was tempted to carry 
her out to the verandah on purpose to show it to her. It was 
so low down, however, that for some time I could not fix her 
attention on the spot. At last she caught a glimpse of it, flash- 
ing away between the tops of the trees, and turning to me, ex- 
claimed, 'Moon! Moon!'" Again, "The child, who had ac- 
companied us all the morning, though unconscious of the cause, 
likewise felt the genial influence of the hour, and amused her- 
self at our feet, while we were seated on the grass, by tryhig 
to imitate the sounds made by a pig which had thrust him- 
self m,ost unpoeticaUy into the foreground of the picture, and 
there busied himself, much to the infanfs amusem^ent, in 
making a line of circumvallation round the party, luith his 
snout. ^' " Our confidence in the measure alluded to, was much 
increased by discovering how good a traveller the little creature 
made, though only fourteen months old. Of this we had an amu- 
sing proof, on the morning after the scene with the pig. At 
four o'clock we were all roused up to prepare for the steam-boat 
which passed at five. I thought it a jrity to awake her, and 
therefore merely wrapped her up in my boat-cloak, in which she 
was carried /i^//^ half a mile to the landing place. There the 

us with surprise on witnessing petitions from females during the last session, 
and a talk about " looking into precedents," that no allusion should be made to 
a Document so apposite in its terms, and so characteristic of the times in which 
it was presented. 



16 

yuim^ adveyiturer was laid 07i the table of a warehouse, in the 
midst of bells ringing, doors banging, and all kinds of music, 
till the steam-boat hove in sight. Still she slept on, through 
all the clatter of the passengers and paddle ivheels, and never 
stirred or opened her eyes till we had left the pretty town of 
Hudson many miles astern. " We are farther let into the fact, 
that the little girl ran about on board the canal boat, "at the 
end of a shawl, by which she was tethered for better security 
against tumbling overboard." 

It is added, in illustration of the state of things in the United 
States, ''During all the morning she had been dragging the 
passengers about the decks of the steam-boat, opening every 
box and door that she could get at, till she fairly dropped 
asleep, at full length, in the middle of the deck." Having, 
''let a good meal slip by us,'' the consequence was, that the 
child was " lohining from time to time, from sheer hunger." 
Then we have two pages to the same purport, at the end of 
which, "little Miss," is found "gobbling up" some new milk. 
On another occasion, "I am not sure that I ever looked upon 
her little countenance with so much satisfaction, as I did at that 
moment." 

All this, too, occurs in a book which omits what would re- 
ally, be of interest, and with regard to which Captain Hall had 
very good opportunities of informing himself. Thus he tra- 
versed the whole of the Southern States, and we looked, with 
some eagerness, for information, as to the actual influence of 
the Tariff on that quarter. Did the feeling of repugnance seem 
so strong as to threaten a convulsion, should the measure be 
persisted in, without modification? How far has it affected 
the Liverpool connexion? Does the prospect of a safe domes- 
tic market begin to reconcile the people to it? Do they get 
from the Eastern manufactories, an article as good and as cheap 
as the imported one? How much of their Cotton is consumed 
at those establishments, and what are the comparative advan- 
tages of the two markets? What do they say as to the oppres- 
sive duty, of this country, on Tobacco? Do they confirqi the 
British Ambassador's declaration to his Government, that the 
Tariff Bill never would have passed but for the pressure of the 
British Corn Laws on the great staples of Pennsylvania? (See 
Parliamentary Documents.) He is totally silent on these 
points, and yet has leisure to tell us, that his child mistook a 
star for the moon, and that he himself was guilty of a very dif- 
ferent blunder at Niagara, for, whilst evidently only moon- 
struck, he fancied himself, "traversing the Heavens, in com- 
pany with Sir Isaac Newton, and that the sage was just going 
to tell me about the distance of \}i\<& fixed starsP^ (vol. i. p. 353.) 
These stars, perhaps, are more in fault than he; otherwise, we 
might complain of a hundred other omissions: amongst the rest;, 
his total silence as to most important public works. 



If we were to take Captain Hall to task, in a harsh temper, 
for having thus filled up his book with matters which can only 
interest himself, he would probably wish to reply in the lan- 
guage of one of the most delightful of living writers: — "To 
persons of a cold and reserved temper, he sometimes appeared 
rather too much of an egotist, for he talked with fluent enthu- 
siasm of the excellent qualities and beauties of whatever he 
loved, whether it were his dog, his horse, or his country; but 
this was not the egotism of vanity — it was the overflowing of 
an affectionate heart, confident of obtaining sympathy from his 
fellow creatures, because conscious of feeling it for all that ex- 
isted." He would declare, that he lived, as it were, unguard- 
edly amongst these people, and, feeling almost domesticated, 
forgot the technical rules of politeness. " In general society , 
also, so much attention was paid to our wants, and such a rea- 
dy disposition manifested to give information — to say nothing 
of the obliging notice taken by all parties of our young tra- 
veller, now a year and a half old — that we left Albany with 
sincere regret." Now Albany is the place most vehemently 
denounced for self-puffing, and this "tormenting" practice, 
proceeded so far, that "there was hardly room left for us to 
slip in a word edgeways." Suppose these good people, the 
moment Captain Hall turned his back, had begun to recollect 
the " rules of behaviour," which he declares are not yet "set- 
tled" in America, and which seem, by mutual consent, to have 
slumbered during this free and unsuspicious intercourse. All 
the world over, he says, it is ill-manners to praise your own 
family; yet we venture to say, that Captain Hall told these 
people all about " what a good traveller the little creature made," 
of the attempt to imitate the pig, and of that other "amusing" 
incident, "the day after the scene with the pig." It is laid 
down in the Books, to be very vulgar to plague people with 
your children — troublesome brats — yet all parties at Albany, 
it seems, had a tax imposed on their kindness and good nature, 
which was cheerfully paid, because, they saw that the parents 
were gratified. And yet because, in this sort of amiable inter- 
course, the feelings flowed out on the other side, and they talk- 
ed of the nurselings of their pride, which Captain Hall had 
come across the Atlantic to visit — brought them into the par- 
lour, and dandled them before him — he "finds from his notes," 
that all this was very disgusting. 

For our part, we confess that the passages relating to the lit- 
tle girl are by far the most pleasing of the whole, and we would 
give up all the profound disquisitions rather than part with one 
anecdote, even that about the pig. We catch, here, something 
of an amiable play about the features of the Book, relieving its 
high cheek-bones, and vile, sarcastic. Sneer, and pert, conceit- 
ed Voice. Bad taste as it may be, we dearly love to hear good 



78 

Mrs. Primrose "praising up" her daughters, and are not "tor- 
mented," even when she declares that the chits, well as they 
footed it, had caught all their best steps from herself. 

But we have been conceding the truth of the charge. Where 
is the evidence of it, or what, in fact, is distinctly meant by- 
it? He declares they bepraised their institutions and their ca- 
nal. Now we presume, that when a stranger comes into a 
country to examine what is peculiar to it — and asks, an expla- 
nation of the circumstances in which it differs from what he 
finds elsewhere — an effort will be made to set forth the reasons 
to the best advantage. We consider every thing to be for the 
best; otherwise we would make a change. The very statement 
of these supposed advantages necessarily involves a high degree 
of praise, and, of course, exposes the informant to the sneers 
of a person like Captain Hall, who says, "very often, when 
asking for information, I have detected that my ivish was rather 
to prove my original and prejudiced conceptions right, than 
to discover that I had previously done the people injustice." 
It is curious to note how Captain Hall manages this matter on 
his own part. At the close of his work, he introduces a dia- 
logue between himself, and an American, in which, to be sure, 
he draws such a picture of the English Government, that we 
only wonder his vanquished antagonist did not at once deter- 
mine to quit the poor Republic, and, according to the forms of 
knight-errantry throw himself at the feet of the victor's dulci- 
nea. If it be in the power of exaggeration to do more, we think 
the materials can be drawn only from Captain Hall's apparently 
inexhaustible stores. The poor American in this "character- 
istic" colloquy does not venture to say a word in favour of his 
own country, but confines himself to a feeble assault which is 
readily parried with the aid of a stern countenance, and a loud, 
authoritative, voice. We may remark, by the way, that this 
anonymous American the Captain took into his service at a ve- 
ry early period, and carried all over the country with him, 
and the poor devil never once gets the better in any of their 
various discussions. He seems, in truth, to have been a sim- 
ple, easy, soul, with no great stock of brains, and marvellously 
in awe of the Captain, oftentimes appearing quite afraid to speak 
up, or even to say his soul's his own. In this closing exhibi- 
tion, he plays the part of a good-natured spectator at a show — 
naming the cards, and if he say one of them's black — lo — pres- 
to — the Captain breathes on it — its a white ace! At parting he 
gets a good character for honesty and civility, and may be safe- 
ly recommended to any future tourist of Captain Hall's tempe- 
rament, particularly if travelling with children. 

It seems, farther, from the Captain's account, that the Al- 
bany people made much of their Canal; telling him, doubt- 
less, — in reply to bis inquiries, — ^what it had cost, what diffi* 



79 

culties they had to struggle with, what revenue it yielded to the 
State, and paying a deserved tribute to the illustrious citizen 
whose fame is identified with its success. 

But the Canadians, do not boast of their Canals. For this 
we have already furnished, it is presumed, a sufficient reason. 
Their cue was, in the language of Captain Hall's Irish friend, 
Cornelius, rather to " understate" matters. That they put on 
a begging air, and asked, that a good word might be spoken 
for them at home, may be inferred from various passages. Thus 
(vol. i. p. 235,) "The Rideau Canal, must, if we regard our 
national honour, on no account be abandoned, cost what it 
9nay.'* And again, "Our present duty is most clear, and 
though its execution be somewhat costly, its imperative cha- 
racter is not altered on that account." Speaking of "a pro- 
jected fortress at the Short Hills," he says, (vol. i. p. 249,) 
*' I conceive that this fortification, and one or two others, ought 
to be erected forthwith, to shovv^ the Canadians as well as their 
neighbours, that we are in earnest, &c. " He holds it out in 
terrorem, to the Canadians, that " were they to become mem- 
bers of the American Confederacy," then, " every improve- 
ment made, would be at the expense of direct taxation, from 
which they are now exempt." Tiiat Captain Hall should deem 
this a very powerful argument is natural from what he saw of 
their indisposition to put their own shoulders to the wheel. 
*' We left Quebec at half past nine in the morning of the 28th 
August, and after an hour and a half's drive, came to the river 
Montmorency, over which there had been a bridge that, about 
six weeks before, had tumbled down, and, what was absurd 
enough, there seemed every probability of its remaining down 
six weeks longer, though an active carpenter with some twen- 
ty labourers, might easily have put it up again, and n.'ade it 
passable for carriages in two days. I never saw any country 
where these sort of things appeared to move so slowly as in 
Canada," It may be recollected, that a few hours after leaving 
the Capital of the other Province, they were brought into im- 
minent peril in attempting to cross a river, " where a bridge 
had once stood, but stood no longer." 

It seems, however, that for what the Canadians really con- 
sider their own, they are very much disposed to exact admi- 
ration. They do not, for example, fear that an Englishman 
%vill say, according to Mr. Canning's well known story, 
" that's, my thunder. " They almost plagued him to death 
about their cascades, and carried their impertinence so far, as 
even to think that he would, to please them, break in on his 
"morning nap," (vol. i. p. 399,) which he seems to consider 
the summum bonum. *' We lay snoozing very snugly," (ib. 
p. 398,) is his beau ideal of happiness, even in the month of 
August. Besides, he has no good of his victuals when hurried ; 



80 

and breaks out thus, on these importunate people, (p. 399-400.) 
*' Were we to snatch hasty cold meals, or scald our throats with 
boiling tea, instead of doing such business at leisure, merely 
because a waterfall was to be seen?'^ "But to travel in this 
leisurely style, you must keep yourselves to yourselves, and 
shun as you would that of an evil spirit the assistance of guides, 
chaperons, or companions; and, above all, that of well in- 
formed friends. Had we been accompanied, for example, on 
our excursion to St. Anne's, by any of the very pleasant and 
obliging people ot Quebec, to whom every foot of the ground 
is well known, what a fuss they would have been in, on find- 
ing their victim was only beginning to think of shaving two 
hours after he ought, by their reckoning, to have been under 
all sail on the mountain's side," &c. He at length comes to 
start at the bare mention of a Lion in the path; yet these mer- 
ciless people let on him the little ones and all. Thus, (p. 401,) 
^^ Kettle Falls, so called, I believe, in consequence of a num- 
ber of holes worn by the stream in the surface of the rocks, 
into the shape of pots and pans. Be this as it may, the river 
happened to be so low, that there was nothing in the way of 
cascade, to be seen; and upon the whole, we felt a m.alicious 
satisfaction at the circumstance, for we were beginning to 
get rather tired of waterfalls. Independently of which, it is 
sometimes quite a relief to be spared the pain of inexpressi- 
ble admiration " Most amiable gentleman-like feeling truly! 
A ''malicious satisfaction" that kind people, who left their em- 
ployments, and endeavoured to render his journey agreeable, 
should be mortified at finding that accidental circumstances 
prevent their previous representations with regard to scenery 
from being verified! We look back with something of puzzle 
at Captain Hall's assertion, (p. 212,) that the Canadians "with- 
out insisting upon having things viewed couleur de rose, are 
content to believe that strangers passing through their country, 
will take a fair view of things." It occurs, about the period 
of his rencontre with that Cavalier, who had disencumbered 
himself of his " nether garments," to move more comfortably 
through the mud. Yet though the portly horseman, who af- 
terwards became Captain Hall's " fat friend," is very candid 
as to the state of the roads, he still exhibits rather a boastful 
temper in his way. ' The trutli is, added he, chuckling at his 
own proivess, I had some considerable distance to ride through 
a place where it was so deep, that the water came far above my 
knees,' and again, ' Oh, cried he, guessing our thoughts, and 
smacking his thigh ivith his hand, I was obliged to take off 
these articles (naming them,) and by hanging them over my 
shoulders, I did very well as you perceive.' The seeming 
contradiction is to be reconciled by noting, that in one place, 
his object is to throw out a silly sarcasm at the United States, 



\ 



81 

by a compliment to the Canadians, whilst in the other, he yields, 
unguardedly, to the promptings of natural temper. 

Now and then, the Captain runs to an extreme of impartia- 
lity, offering opinions in direct and palpable contradiction of 
each other, and leaving us at liberty to make up our minds quite 
untrammelled by his authorit)'-. Thus, at p. 124, of the first 
volume, he adverts to the want of rapture on the part of Ame- 
ricans towards the scenery of the Hudson. " Neither is this 
to be explained by supposing them to have become too well ac- 
quainted with the objects in question; for I think it happens, 
generally, that when there is a real, and not an imaginary per- 
ception of the beauties of nature, the pleasure arising from their 
contemplation goes on increasing, and habit, so far from ren- 
dering such scenes too familiar to be interesting, only contri- 
butes to unfold new points for admiration." At p. 253 of the 
same volume, he says, " It may, perhaps, sound heterodox, but 
I know few things more fatiguing, /or a continuance, than fine 
ecenery; and I suspect most people, after passing three or four 
loeeksin Switzerland, would say they were right glad to escape 
into Italy, or even into France." One or the other of these 
passages must, of course, be erased, after the author shall have 
fully made up his mind, and, doubtless, he will retain the sar- 
casm against the people of the United States. It will not fail 
to occur to the reader that here is one of the most striking in- 
stances of the silly, thoughtless, frivollt}^ of the tourist. He 
has professed to describe the feelings of Americans towards 
scenery, and towards England; and his mode of treating one 
may illustrate his candour and powers of philosophical obser- 
vation with regard to the other. He decides that the Americans 
are insensible to the beauties of Nature, because he witnessed 
no overt act of Rapture at scenes with which they had been 
conversant from childhood. And yet this intensity of enjoy- 
ment which should "goon increasing" with familiarity, is de- 
clared, a little farther on, to pall after three weeks! We feel 
very sure that Nature will not be deceived by such a witness 
as Captain Hall; and it is hoped that England will not. 

Another of his inexplicable jumbles. On the Hudson River 
he forbears to say any thing about the scenery, because it " has 
been so ably and so faithfully described" by a " classical" 
American author. On the way from New Orleans, he is oc- 
cupied on a '' spirited" American work. He expresses signal 
gratification that the works of a lady of Massachusetts had been 
republished in England. On Mr. Cooper's novels he passes the 
highest eulogium. An American work, written " in a very 
masterly style," he apprises his readers, is to be *' procured 
from Mr. Miller, American book-seller. Pall Mall, London." 
He quotes passages from various " learned," " eloquent" 
" able," American writers. At Philadelphia a gentleman sa- 
tisfiesr* him that he has committed an important philological 

11 



82 

blunder in his book on Loo Choo, and he is so anxious to repair, 
as far as possible, the mischief, that he got the gentleman to 
draw up a paper on the subject, which he caused to be published 
in London, and tells us where it is to be procured. At New 
liaven, he says, " I was at first surprised when Mr. Webster 
assured me there were not fifty words in all which were used 
in America, and not in England, but I have certainly not been 
able to collect nearly that number. He told me, too, what I did 
not quite agree to at the time, but which subsequent inquiry 
has confirmed as far as it has gone, that with very few excep- 
tions, all these apparent novelties are merely old English words 
brought over by the early settlers." He finds, every where, 
*^ pleasant agreeable" people, and his chance fellow passengers 
in the stage, prove "very intelligent persons, who gave us 
much information that was quite new." Now it does not ap- 
pear that Captain Hall travelled with an Interpreter, or that he 
read the volumes referred to in a translation. Yet at one of 
those moments when he saw things " through a bilious medi- 
um," he makes the following unqualified assertion, '' In all my 
Travels, both amongst Heathens (Loo Choo, &c.,) and amongst 
Christians, I have never encountered ani/ people by whom I 
found it nearly so difficult to make myself understood as by 
the Americans." And to the utter dismay, doubtless, of '' Mr. 
Miller, American bookseller, Pall Mall, London," no sooner 
has he given that gentleman's address, and recommended, ap- 
parently, his readers to go there and purchase a certain Ame- 
rican work, written " in a very masterly style," than he turns 
round and speaks of the " very foolish sort of ivisdorri'^ which 
w^ould be manifested in " extending our acquaintance with their 
literature and history beyond its present confined limits-!" 

At Boston, Captain Hall visited the High School for boys, 
and two of the scholars (" who took us for their own country 
people") being called out to speak, happened, unluckily, to hit 
upon some specimens of oratory not exactly suited to such an 
audience. From the description given of these speeches, the 
adoption of which "as models" he deprecates, we suppose 
them to have been, the one that of Col. Barre, and the other, 
Lord Chatham's. The phrases quoted, " Gratitude! Gratitude 
to England," &c., are Col. Barre's, with an addition, we sus- 
pect, from Captain Hall. The American gentlemen who ac- 
companied him were " disconcerted" at the circumstance. The 
Captain manifested his usual good breeding by loud and sarcas- 
tic merriment. " We were amused to the top ofoitr bent, and 
the young orators seeing us take more than common interest 
in their declamations, elevated their voices," &c. Strange 
that Captain Hall cannot see the wretchedly vulgar taste of all 
this! If, as we are inclined to suppose, the speech which he 
heard was that of Lord Chatham, usually associated with 
Barre's, we can readily understand that it might not have been 



83 

very acceptable to him. The following is an extract: — ^^ These 
Colonisis are ;mw, my Lords, called rebels; they are stigma- 
tized w'th every base and abusive epithet in the English lan- 
guage. Yet, my Lords, / rcniemher when this country was 
waging war with the united powers of France and Spain; when 
there was a rebellion, a Scotch rebellion, within this land; / 
remember when our fleets were useless — our armies unsuccess- 
ful — that these men, now described as the blackest and basest 
of all rebels, nay more, that very Colony v,'hich has been re- 
presented as the hot-bed of sedition and treason — that colony 
against which the keenest lightnings of government are de- 
nounced and directed; I remember, I say, my Lords, this very 
Colony, sending forth four regiments of undisciplined militia, 
which gave the first check to France in her proud career, 
and erected the standard, of conquest on the walls of Louis- 
bourgh. But, my Lords, we need not point out particular 
facts in proof of the bravery, the zeal, the duty and affection 
of the people; the annals of the last war (that which ended i\\ 
1763,) will tell such of your Lordships as are not old enough 
to remember, how they fought, and how they bled; they will 
tell you how generously they contributed, how like loving 
brothers they shared the common burden and the common dan- 
ger. Your system, my Lords, has been erected on the ruins 
of the Constitution, and founded in conquest, and you have 
swept all Germany of its refuse as its means. There is not a 
petty, insignificant, prince, whom you have not solicited for 
aid." (Gentleman's Magazine for 1777, p. 251-2.) 

Our tourist cannot seriously think that an American school- 
master is bound to prohibit the use of Lord Chatham's speeches. 
True, Captain Hall has a peculiar theory of his own on the sub- 
ject of public speaking, and insists on a sort of quiet, snug, col- 
loquial manner, little suited to the vehement and masculine 
spirit of the great orator, or indeed of Fox, Burke, or Canning. 
He cannot abide, he says, that ''loud oratorical tone which is 
the bane of good debating.^' With regard to Col. Barre, if 
Junius did not disdain to borrow a sarcasm from him, surely 
we may be permitted to refer to one who was the most strenu- 
ous asserter of the great constitutional principle on which the 
revolution was fought, and with regard to which both coun- 
tries now entertain the same opinion. That our admiration of 
Lord Chatham's oratory is not altogether connected with his 
conduct in reference to the revolutionary struggle may be in- 
ferred from the circumstance that the speech on the difficulties 
with Spain is equally well known, and as great a favourite in 
our schools. We remember to have recited it with due em- 
phasis and discretion, from " Select Speeches, Forensic and 
Parliamentary," which is the standard American collection, 
and in the following passage we find that our memory corres- 
ponds exactly with the report in the Gentleman's Magazine, 
for the year 1770, (p. 571.) 



84 

''My Lords, the English are a candid, an ingenuous peo- 
ple: the Spaniards are as mean and crafty as they are proud and 
insolent. The integrity of the English merchant, the gene- 
rous spirit of our naval and military officers would be degraded 
by a comparison with their merchants or officers. With their 
ministers I have often been obliged to negotiate, and after long 
experience of their want of candour and good faith, I found 
myself compelled," &c. 

The Quarterly Review in quoting this part of Captain Hall's 
book, expresses infinite horror, that such a temper "could be 
introduced into the recitations of their inflated compositions, 
in their seminaries for education." We have given what is 
.supposed to be the true explanation, though the tourist has so 
veiled his description that nothing but conjecture can be ha- 
zarded. We may ask, whilst on the subject, for an explana- 
tion of a circumstance which has attracted some attention in 
the United States. In the Gentleman's Magazine, for April, 
1815, (p. 352,) will be found not merely the adoption of a mo- 
del, but an original composition prepared for the most distin- 
guished "seminary for education," in Great Britain — that of 
Westminster. It was here, that Lord Mansfield was educated, 
and his biographer remarks, "His Lordship having paid eve- 
ry grateful tribute to Westminster School in his life time, where 
he received his education, his profound respect for ahna ma- 
ter dictated the direction in his Will, that his remains should 
be deposited there." The composition alluded to is a virulent 
attack on the United States; and the purity and force of the 
Latin show it to be no school-boy production. It is thrown 
into the form of a dissuasive against emigration to the United 
States, and, of course, was written after the termination of the 
war. The following are specimens of its vituperation. It is 
said, to be, there, accounted a good joke to gouge, to scalp, to 
bite off the nose, and to take human life. 

oculos exscalpere, poUice frontem 
Scalpere, nasum omnem mordicas abripere 
Atque nccare hominem jocus est Icpidissimus. 

To lie, is the great boast of an American merchant. 

" Mentiri est mercatorls laus summa," 

Of the Chief Justice of the United States, it is said, 

" Optimus et Judex maximus est nebulo." 

and of the various meanings of the word, whether " rascal,"' 
"scoundrel," "hector," " cowardly bully," &c., the reader 
is prompted to select the most odious. Did Captain Hall hear 
any thing of this sort in the United States? It is not designed, 
be it observed, to cherish a generous recollection of national 
prowess, but consists of mere cold-blooded defamation. The 
same personage has filled the office alluded to for more than a 



85 

quarter of a century, and Captain Hall speaks of 'Uhe pre-emi- 
nent talents and high character of the present venerable Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States." May not 
the learned authorities of this Institution reflect, with pain, how 
far they have contributed, to foster that ''unkindly feeling,'" 
and that, ''animosity," which, we are told, prevail in Great 
Britain towards America? The young gentlemen who were 
tutored to utter these falsehoods are now in the House of Lords 
or the House of Commons. Can the shade of Lord Mansfield 
linger with complacency round a scene desecrated by the slan- 
der of one whom he would not have disdained as an associate 
in the Sacred Ministry of Justice? 

Captain Hall is at a loss to understand what motives he can 
possibly have for giving an unfavourable account of the L^nited 
States. Without imputing to him either the guilt, or the stea- 
diness of purpose, implied in a settled determination to misre- 
present, we can readily imagine a variety of considerations 
which have, perhaps insensibly to himself, given a tone to his 
book. We are willing to believe that he reached the threshold 
of publication irresolute. A confused mass of materials lay be- 
fore him; a great deal prepared, while he saw every thing 
'* through a bilious medium," and the rest in a more compla- 
cent mood; time was hastening to take from the interest and 
freshness of his statements; a decision must be made; and it 
was essential to the dignity of the work to give to the whole, 
some prevailing character, so that even grave Statesmen might 
not disdain to draw from it important political reflections. 
This is the trying crisis when anxious thoughts throng upon 
a weak, and a vain, man, looking over his discordant notes and 
calculating the chances of success; and it is to this period that 
our remarks apply. 

A manufacturer of books, like the manufacturer of any other 
article, must study the taste, and even the caprice, of the mar- 
ket. Those " china plates," as Captain Hall calls them, which 
he saw bearing the image of General Washington, came from 
England; and nothing, certainly, can exceed the good nature 
with which the amiable people at the Potteries have waived their 
prejudices, and ministered to our self-complacencj'', particular- 
ly in reference to the naval combats. Now, as to the American 
market, Captain Hall ascertained that in order to take out a copy- 
right, he must be a resident of the United States, and this not 
exactly suiting his views, he declares, that he writes exclusive- 
ly for his own countrymen. What then did he believe would 
be the most acceptable strain? He has characterized the pre- 
valent temper towards America, by the epithets " ill-will," 
^'animosity," "unkindly feelings." It was, therefore, not 
likely that a book got up in a temper utterly rebuking these 
sentiments would be a very popular, or a very saleable, one. 



8G 

Captain Hall had the benefit of his own experience to guide him. 
He knew how much more gratifying it was to find "his origi- 
nal and prejudiced conceptions right, than to discover that in- 
justice had previously been done to the people." (vol. i. p. 
167.) Preconceived opinions are not, as he justly remarks, to 
be " got rid of without a certain degree of inconsistency gene- 
rally ;oae/^w/, and sometimes ridiculous.'^ (ib.) If he expe- 
rienced this feeling amidst the kindness and hospitality of the 
country, he might well anticipate its existence on the part of 
those who, with like prejudices, have no such reason for thinking 
their indulgence ungracious or unkind. It is undoubted, that 
the judgment is piqued by perpetual contradiction and efforts to 
set us right, and, besides, more labour is involved in the pro- 
cess than one chooses to expend on volumes classed with the 
lighter literature of the day. It is another advantage, and some- 
times an important one, of a tone of assentation, that we re- 
quire nothing to corroborate what falls quietly in with our 
own previous belief, whilst he who opposes it becomes at 
once the adversary's witness, and half our thoughts are em- 
ployed in preparing a cross-examination, and considering how 
his testimony may be assailed. 

In the next place, it is evident that Captain Hall, if not him- 
self a partisan, has, at least, been habitually in association, and 
the warmest sympathy, with the party described in the follow- 
ing passage of the Edinburgh Review, (Vol. xxxiii. page 399.) 
^' It is a fact which can require no proof even in America, that 
there is a party in this country not friendly to political liberty, 
and decidedly hostile to all extension of popular rights, which, 
if it does not grudge to its own people the powers and privi- 
leges which are bestowed on them by the Constitution, is, at 
least, for confining their exercise within the narrowest limits — 
which thinks the peace and well being of societ)^ in no danger 
from any thing but popular encroachments, and holds the only 
safe or desirable government to be that of a pretty, pure, and 
unencumbered monarchy, supported by a vast revenue and a 
powerful army, and obe)^ed by a people just enlightened enough 
to be orderly and industrious, but no way curious as to ques- 
tions of right, and never presuming to judge of the conduct of 
their superiors. Now, it is quite true that this party dislikes 
America, and is apt enough to decry and insult her. Its adhe- 
rents never have forgiven the success of her War of Indepen- 
dence — the loss of a nominal sovereignty, or perhaps of a real 
power of vexing and oppressing her supposed rivalry in trade, 
and, above all, the happiness and tranquillity which she enjoys 
under a republican form of government. Such a spectacle of 
democratical prosperity is unspeakably mortifying to their prin- 
ciples, and is easily imagined to be dangerous to their security. 
Their first wish, and for a time their darling hope, was that the 
infant States would quarrel among themselves, and be thankful 



87 

to be again received under our protection as a refuge from mili- 
tary despotism. Since that hope was lost, it would have satis- 
tied them to find that their republican institutions had made 
them poor, and turbulent, and depraved, incapable of civil wis- 
dom, regardless of national honour, and as intractable to their 
own elected rulers as they had been to their hereditary sove- 
reign. To those who were capable of such wishes, and such 
expectations, it is easy to conceive that the happiness and good 
order of the United States — the wisdom and authority of their 
government — and the unparalleled rapidity of their progress 
in wealth, population, and I'efinement, must have been but an 
ungrateful spectacle; and most especially, that the splendid and 
steady success of the freest and most popular form of govern- 
ment that ever was established in the world, must have struck 
the most lively alarm into the hearts of all those who were anx- 
ious to have it believed that the people could never interfere in 
politics, but to their ruin, and that the smallest addition to the 
democratical influence recognised in the theory, at least, of the 
British Constitution must lead to the immediate destruction of 
peace and prosperity, morality and religion. That there are 
journals in this country, and journals, too, of great and deserved 
reputation in other respects, which have spoken the languge of 
the party we have now described, and that in a tone of singu- 
lar intemperance and offence, we most readily admit," &c. 

It is curious to note how soon after the Revolution this tem- 
per was displayed. 

Dr. Franklin, in the year 1786, writing from America toM. 
Le Veillard, uses the following language, (Memoirs, &c., Lon- 
don, 1818, 2 vol. p. 90.) "Be assured that all the stories 
spread in the English papers of our distresses and confusions, 
and discontents with our new government, are as chimerical as 
the history of my being in chains at Algiers. They exist only 
in the wishes of our enemies." "All this is in answer to that 
part of your letter, in which you seem to have been too much 
impressed with some of the ideas which those lying Englih pa- 
pers endeavour to inculcate concerning us." 

And again, in a letter to David Hartley, Esq., he says, (vol, 
ii. p. 136.) " Your newspapers are filled with accounts of dis- 
tresses and miseries, that these States are plunged into, since 
their separation from Britain. You may believe me when I 
tell you, that there is no truth in these accounts." 

In a letter, dated London, 22nd April, 1786, Mr. Jefferson 
says, (See Memoir, Correspondence, &c., London, 1829, 2 vol. 
p. 2.) "I dined the other day in a company of the ministCFi- 
al party. A General Clark, a Scotchman and a ministerialist, 
sat next to me. He introduced the subject of American affairs, 
and, in the course of the conversation, told me that were Ame- 
rica to petition Parliament to be again received on their for- 
mer footing, the petition would be very generally rejected." 



88 

The same disposition is manifested, at the present day, by 
those who think it important to decry the influence of popular 
sentiment in every country, and under every form of govern- 
ment. The continued tranquillity and happiness of America 
they regard as an affront to their sagacity, and as having, for 
fifty years, kept them out of a good argument. Fortunately, 
a new topic has of late years started up to vary the themes cur- 
rent in Dr. Franklin's day. The difficulty experienced by tho 
people of Mexico, &c., in suddenly turning to the best advan- 
tage their escape from Despotism — the awkwardness of their 
first attempts at self-government without the least previous train- 
ing or preparation — are turned to an excellent account. The 
omission, also, to pay dividends, has given a shock to the cre- 
dit of Republicanism on Change, and the panic spreading thence 
amongst the holders of the public securities, people start at the 
very word Reform, as if it must lead to something shifty and 
insecure, besides involving an unworthy imitation of a parcel of 
Republics, who, if caught in England, would be every one of 
them in the King's Bench before night. 

It is a matter of course, that we are destined to the same 
evils; the whole being treated as one great partnership concern 
for the propagation of republicanism, and we, as senior mem- 
bers of the Firm, liable for the errors of the others, and, per- 
haps, in honour, if the matter was duly considered, for their 
debts. The Quarterly review assures its readers that it is " only 
by maintaining peace that they (the United States) have any 
chance of preventing their country from exhibiting the same 
scenes of tnisery, as are now displaying themselves in the sis- 
ter democracies of Mexico, Peru, Columbia, and La Plata, 
(No. for November 1829.) The Review has, indeed, ventured 
on a very bold experiment. To the Article on Captain Hall's 
Travels, is appended a Letter purporting to come from the 
United States, of which the object is to prove the folly of at- 
tempting to remedy the grossest abuses in Government or the 
Laws. The writer is made, mysteriousl)'', to sa}'^, ^'nature 
will sometimes effect changes, but art cannot," and he "ho- 
nours" the Spaniard who '' boasts" of the tranquillizing effects 
of the Inquisition. The whole, iii short, is not merely a rebuke 
of those who achieved the American Revolution, but of all who 
were active in 1688, or even in bringing about the late measure 
of relief to the Catholics. It is introduced as confirmatory of a 
hope that Captain Hall's book may do good in America. Now, 
unfortunately for any such connexion, the whole object of his 
profound work is to prove that America never can be happy 
without a complete change in her form of government Even 
dram-drinking. Captain Hall declares, must go on increasing, 
so long as we continue to be republicans. *' The habit, accord- 
ing to my view of the matter, is interwoven in the very struc- 
ture of that political society which the Americans not only de* 



89 

fend, but uphold, as the very wisest that has ever been devised, 
or ever put in practice for the good of mankind," (vol. ii. p. 
85.) So far, then, from inculcating the principle of ntare deci- 
sis, Captain Hall assures us that even our vows of sobriety, for 
the time to come, will be utterly unavailing, unless we lay the 
axe to the root of the evil, and strike out all the more popular 
features of our Constitution — including, perhaps, the provision 
as to the Liberty of the Press. Doubtless his suggestion will 
have due weight with those who are endeavouring to discover 
a remedy for an evil which is now so severely scourging En- 
gland, and which short-sighted people have attributed to a i^ery 
different cause. 

The Organ of the Party to which allusion has been made is, 
undoubtedly, the Quarterly Review; and Captain Hall cannot 
i)e ignorant of its influence with the class of persons into whose 
hands his book was likely to fall. In the number for Janua- 
ry 1828, of that work, is an Essay on the subject of America, 
written by some one connected with the English Adtniraltyy 
and enjoying familiar access to its archives. It is in this ar- 
ticle that the assertion is made, '' We need hardly say there is 
not a Captain in the British Navy, who would not, in the event 
of a contest, be delighted to meet with the Pennsylvania while 
in command of the Caledonia." It is remarkable that in this 
same article, a ^' wish'' is expressed that the kindness shown 
to Captain Hall in the United States, might not have the 
effect of ^^ causing our agreeable Captain to see things cou- 
leur de rose." (No. for January, 1828, p. 261.) This was 
eighteen months before the appearance of the Travels, and we 
submit that it was hardly fair. Its tendency was in the first 
place to disincline Americans to extend to a traveller, thus cau- 
tioned, the kindness and the facilities for obtaining information 
which any other stranger would have enjoyed, lest the mere 
impulse of hospitality might be construed into a wish to pur- 
chase from the "agreeable Captain" golden opinions of them- 
selves and their country. Nor would it seem to be less calcu- 
lated to have an influence on the agreeable gentleman himself. 
The air of the several articles referred to, and of another of the 
same stamp, in the No. for January 1829, is altogether official 
and authoritative. Thus we are told, and the information is 
now for the first time given to the world, that the conflagra- 
tion at Washington, "was in reality a measure of the Cabinet, 
and not of the Camp," (No. for March 1828, p. 513;) and in the 
more recent article referred to, it is said, " ivith confidence as 
regards the Government — with full conviction as far as regards 
the more intelligent part of the community, we can affirm," 
&c. &c. (No. for January 1829, p. 241.) Slight hints from such 
a quarter always mean rather more than meets the ear. It can 
require no great sagacity on the part of the officer to whom ad- 
vice is thus addressed; to understand that his chance of conti- 

12 



90 

nuing to merit the title of "agreeable," will depend not a little 
on his consenting to afford some degree of countenance to the 
tirades of his counsellor. Care, indeed, is taken in these Ar* 
tides to give very clear warning of the treatment which an 
author must expect, who however accommodating his general 
temper may be, yet ventures, on any occasion, to express a 
sentiment inconsistent with the purposes of the critic. Thus 
the author of the " Narrative of the Campaigns at Washington, 
by the author of The Subaltern," though a landsman, and scarce- 
ly subject to Admiralty jurisdiction, and speaking of what 
occurred before his oivn eyes, is thus sharply rebuked for 
having the weakness to deplore the extent of mischief com- 
mitted at Washington, "We are sorry that a writer pos- 
sessed of our author's sense and judgment, should have in- 
considerately joined in such an outcry as this. He ought to 
have paused and reflected ivell, ere he thus ventured to give 
additional currency to the disingenuous suppressions and exag- 
gerations of our enemy, and to echo the unscrupulous flourishes 
of republican rhetoric." (Quart. Rev. for March, 1828, p. 512.) 

Another example of denunciation could hardly fail to rest on 
the memory of Captain Hall, for his own name is introduced 
into it. Thus in the review of Faux's Travels, the following 
expressions occur, (vol. 29. p. 339:) — " From such a man, and 
with such objects in view, one practical page is worth all the 
radical trash of the Halls, the Wrights, and the Tell Har- 
rises, in enabling us to form a just estimate," &c. The assault 
on Miss Wright is thus followed up: " Author of Views of So- 
ciety and Manners in America. We flattered ourselves that 
nothing .so base and degenerate in the shape of an Englishivo- 
Tnan could be found; but the sad reality has since appeared: a 
Miss Wright, an adopted daughter (as she says) of Jeremy Ben- 
tham, having prefixed her name to it." The Hall referred to 
is an Ofiicer of the British Army, who published a volume of 
Travels in the United States which, though displaying all the 
feelings of an Englishman, did not indulge in that blind and 
indiscriminate abuse of the country which had been looked for. 
On this account it was condemned to be burnt by the hands of 
that common hangman of the Review, who does the articles on 
America. 

But there was deep cunning in the hint given to Captain Hall. 
It showed him exactly the turn which would be given to any 
favourable representation he might make of the United States. 
He saw the ridicule prepared for him, as one whose palate, and 
whose vanity, had been tickled by good dinners and civil speeches. 
He saw in anticipation, " it will be remembered that eighteen 
months ago we took occasion to point out the danger to which 
our agreeable Captain was exposed, and really we cannot find 
it in our hearts to quarrel with the amiable weakness which 
has not been proof against the temptation to which we feared it 



91 

would be unequal.'* What a mortifying reception this, com- 
pared with the full, earnest, unqualified burst of gratitude with 
which he has been greeted ! 

*' If we may penetrate the motives of an author from his work, 
we should judge his design has been [to describe the United 
States? — No — but] to render sundry topics intelligible and po- 
pular which are not generally understood or relished by the 
bulk of the people, but to whom right views on these subjects 
are likely to be practically beneficial. He evidently wishes 
• to show the advantages which flow from the distinctions of rank, 
&c. &c. We are quite sure his book must do good here. It may 
furnish many well-disposed persons with arguments by which 
to defend the blessings they enjoy; it may decide the wavering, 
and confuse, if not silence, the turbulent and the revolutionary, 
of whom, we suppose, no free country will ever be entirely de- 
void, though we certainly do not remember the period at which 
one heard less of them in England than at present." 

One reflection is unavoidable. If Captain Hall's denuncia- 
tions are deemed of such vital importance, it follows that a cor- 
responding degree of mischief must have resulted from his 
speaking in favourable terms of the popular institutions of the 
United States. An object so important justified, perhaps, a 
language of caution to him, which seems, on its face, strangely 
illiberal. No one who reads the Article can well doubt its hav- 
ing been drawn up by a person conversant with the documents 
at Whitehall. It has, by some, been attributed to Mr. Cro- 
ker, the Secretary of the Admiralty, and by others, to the Un- 
der Secretary. Captain Hall, however, knows better than we 
can pretend to inform him, who was his significant prompter. 

But we are good naturedly disposed, instead of drawing harsh 
inferences of our own, to give the tourist an opportunity of speak- 
ing for himself. It is proposed, therefore, to follow his move- 
ments until we have reached a pretty decisive manifestation of 
his actual feelings towards the Republic. 

He tells us, that his first impressions of that country were 
formed " two or three and twenty years ago," whilst a midship- 
man of the " Leander, flag-ship of the Halifax station." They 
were not of a favourable kind, '< I confess I was not very 
well disposed to the Americans, a feeling shared with all my 
companions on board, and probably, also, with 7nost of 7ny 
superiors.'^ In order to understand how a midshipman on the 
Halifax station could pretend to form an opinion of the charac- 
ter of the people of the United States, it is necessary to gather 
from other quarters a history of the conduct of the British crui- 
sers along our coast. In the London <' New Monthly Maga- 
zine" for August 1829, a gentleman who had been in America 
many years ago, in the public service of Great Britain, and who 
has recently made another visit, thus describes their operations: 
*' You will allow it admits of doubt, whether any coasting 



92 

skipper, snugly in his birtli, and his schooner at anchor, should 
think it very pleasant to be ordered on deck, in linen, at the 
dead hour of a cold night, by a voice such as is much affected 
by naval officers, particularly by that important class, the mid- 
shipmen, and before he had time to ascertain if the sound was 
not that of his vessel rubbing on the ground, to hear the rigging 
riddled by a platoon of marine musquetry. Nor was it calcu- 
lated to obtain a good report amongst the Yankees to drag their 
ships to leeward, bows under, because they could not ansv/er 
signals with quite as much alacrity as a high-in-order man-of- • 
war, although it might be done with the kind intention of 
teaching them to be more adroit. Moreover it was not ob- 
viously very funny, in a frigate honestly cruising for prizes, 
when she happened to find herself short of junk, politely to take 
a slow American in tow, and having got her hawser on board, 
to draw it in till there was no more to pay out, and then order 
her to cut and be damned." 

It is clear that the opinion which a British officer could form 
of the Americans, under such circumstances, must have been 
derived from the temper which they evinced in reference to so- 
galling a species of annoyance. Doubtless, Midshipman Hall,, 
and the other youngsters, his "companions," could not for- 
bear to think how their own proud and haughty Island would 
have acted under similar provocation. Suppose a French, or 
American, frigate in the Thames or the Mersey, maltreating 
the " coasting skipper!" The Americans were probably re- 
garded on board the Leander with a sort of sportive contempt. 
Yet an incident occurred which could hardly fail to inspire 
a graver feeling. By a shot from this very Leander poor 
Pearce was killed. The circumstance is thus noticed in the 
British Annual Register for 1806, p. 248: '' The third ground 
of complaint on the part of the Americans was of infinitely 
less importance than the others, and their demand to have their 
maritime jurisdiction defined and respected was so just and rea- 
sonable, that no objection could be made to it. An unfortu- 
nate accident, in which an American seaman happened to be 
killed within sight of Neiv York, by a shot from the British 
armed vessel, the Leander, had drawn attention to this subject, 
and rendered some regulations indispensable; but no difficulty 
could occur in settling a point whicii was already settled by 
the law of nations. The affair of the Leander having taken 
place during the elections at New York, great use was made of 
it by the federal party to excite odium against the President, 
and bring discredit upon his administration, on pretence that 
foreigners were encouraged to commit such outrages by their 
knowledge of the loeakness and timidity of his government." 

Such an incident could hardly fail to sober the levity which 
before prevailed; and if there be truth in the remark of Tacitus, 
that it is natural to hate those whom we have injured — 



93 

*• Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quam Iseserls," 

we can readily image that a sentiment of dislike might mingle 
with the unpleasant reminiscences of service on our coast. Yet 
Contempt must have sometimes struggled for the ascendancy 
when they recollected what would have been done if a British 
life had been lost by a shot from an American frigate into a 
Newcastle collier, within sight of London. Then, again, of- 
fence was probably taken at our asking that the Captain of the 
Leander should be tried, as he was, by a naval court-martial. 
He was acquitted, and we acquiesced. Next year our frigate 
Chesapeake was attacked by order of the Commander-in-chief 
of the Halifax station, which was then lying at anchor in Lynn- 
haven Bay. Many of her seamen were killed and wounded. 
We now roused ourselves up in earnest, and issued a very wai'm 
Proclamation. An apology was at length made; but Admiral 
Berkeley, the offending Officer, so far from being punished, 
was appointed to the Lisbon station, against the earnest remon- 
strances of our Minister in London, Mr. Pinckney. Then 
came the Orders in Council; but it was not until nine hundred 
and seventeen of our vessels, with their cargoes, had been en- 
gulfed in the British Prize Courts that our patience gave way. 
All this time, too, the practice of Impressment was going on 
from such American vessels a^ were spared to us. 

Unquestionably, this sort of tameness must have had the ef- 
fect very much to lower us in the estimation of a dashing young 
midshipman. Yet Captain Hall represents his temper as having 
nothing implacable about it. He was willing to forget and for- 
give. Time and distance did a great deal, '' As the duties," 
he says, "of a varied service in after years, threw vcio, far from 
the source at which these national antipathies had been imbibed; 
they appeared gradually to dissipate themselves in proportion as 
my acquaintance with other countries was extended, and I had 
learned to think better of mankind in general^ He had writ- 
ten books, and become a member of several learned societies, 
and thus a bland, philosophical spirit gradually soothed the as- 
perity of the young reefer. He became amongst his late thought- 
less "companions," a sort of Orator of the Human Race — a naval 
Anacharsis Cloots. He reasoned, unceasingly, with them about 
their prejudices. " I came to view with regret the prevalence 
in others of those hostile sentiments I had vaySf^i relinquished. 
My next anxiety naturally was to persuade others," &c. If the 
savages of Loo Choo were so amiable, why might not there be 
some good points about the Americans? Let them answer that 
plain question. These Yankees, he would say, are made (in a 
loose way) after God's image, and may have souls like j'-our- 
selves. The zeal with which he devoted himself to the propa- 
gation of this new theory is amazing, when we consider that he 
was yet in the heyday of life, and was surrounded by all the 
temptations to frivolous amusements which beset the sailoi* on 



9J 

shore. At length these serious thoughts so exercised his mind, 
that he resolved on that great step which has made him known 
to us — his celebrated mission to the West. 

It must be admitted, on all sides, that there was nothing nar- 
row in his views. He wished to carry out, as well as to bring 
back, healing in his wings. But there was a difficulty. He 
represents the prejudice on this side of the Atlantic as strong 
and universal. It is a very remarkable circumstance that he 
does not pretend to have made a single convert in the whole 
course of his labours. No one's wrath was turned away by his 
soft words, and even his old companions, of the Leander, seem 
to have given his eloquence to the winds. Yet it was necessa- 
ry to have some civil things to say to the Americans, and the 
object in view being a laudable one, he deemed it justifiable, 
for a great good, to stretch his conscience a little. He, ac- 
cordingly, set himself to work, to frame a particular form of 
expression; and surely no Jesuit could have devised one better 
calculated to entrap, by seemingly magnificent promises, with- 
out in the least committing his own countrymen. He deter- 
mined to represent to the Americans — 

"That the E)iglish ivere—ivillmg-io think- ^Fe//-of them— 
If-ihey could-on/y 5ee-;/w*/-grounds for-a Change-oi senti- 
ment." ^ 

Now let it be asked, whether a British officer was very cha- 
ry of his honour in holding out these promises.'' Who autho- 
rized Captain Hall to give any pledge on the subject, much 
less to the extent to which he proceeded? He left behind him 
in England, bitter, uncompromising, prejudice. He does not 
profess to have had the slightest authority, verbal or written, 
even from the sea-faring classes with whose sentiments he might 
be presumed to be best acquainted. And what right had he to 
suppose that they would quietly resign so cherished a portion of 
their ideas as these national " antipathies?" Captain Hall knows, 
as well as any body, that these gentlemen are the very persons, 
who, like Goldsmith's Croaker, are quite willing to listen to 
reason, after they have made up their minds, for ^'■then it can do 
no harm." What! why, after a while they would have no- 
thing left to damn but their own souls. Mark the cunning of 
the language prepared for the United States. Fair as the promise 
is to the ear when rapidly uttered, it vanishes when you do not 
slur the If and the concluding words. It binds nobody. Should 
the Americans come into any arrangement with him as to an ar- 
mistice, and agree to lay down their prejudices, he might laugh 
in their faces the next moment. The Treaty would be so mucli 
waste paper without the assent of all the individuals of the British 
Empire, including the vast body of naval officers, marines, sea- 
men, ordinary seamen, and boys, scattered all over the world the 
Lord knows where. Yet into this sort of one-sided compact was 
Captain Hall's language artfully intended to lead; and a plain* 



95 

spoken seaman, who was not put on his guard, would realiy 
take it for granted that he had a regular Power of Attorney. 

It is, now, our serious business to watch closely the move- 
ments, language, and even looks of a Witness, who finally comes 
forward to establish the enmity of the two nations, and who, 
perpetually, attempts to fortify his testimony by asseverations 
of candour and fairness. 

In six weeks after landing at New York, Captain Hall found 
himself in Canada. It is proper to notice, here, the inaccuracy 
of the Quarterly Review, in stating, (November 1829, p. 420,) 
that he '■^ first visited the Northern and Eastern States, then 
passed into Canada." This is not so. Captain Hall proceed- 
ed up the Hudson in a steam boat to Albany, and travelled 
thence to Niagara, never quitting the direct route through the 
State of New York, except that, from Albany, he went thirty- 
eight miles to a small, secluded town, in the western part of 
Massachusetts. Before we permit him to cross into Canada, 
let us interrogate him as to the materials which he had col- 
lected for forming an opinion of the United States. And to 
begin, as Bacon would advise, by negatives. He had not wit- 
nessed the proceedings of Congress; he had not been present 
at a meeting of a State legislature. These he, subsequently, 
represents as the scenes whence his reflections were principally 
drawn, and as having decided his opinions as to the practical 
working and tendency of our system of government. He had 
not seen a Slave. In short, he had encountered none of those 
circumstances which he would fain make us believe, gradually, 
threw a cloud over his fair anticipations. On the other hand, 
on quitting New York, he says, it was difficult to "disentan- 
gle ourselves from the fascinations of the great city." He had 
been no less delighted with "the kind friends" he met there, 
than with the institutions of every description of these "ener- 
getic people," and with the "hospitable and liberal style," 
which universally prevailed. The endearing recollection, too, 
of that "glorious breakfast," which he declares shall brave, 
these thousand years, the battle and the breeze, was then but 
a month old — a little month. On the bosom of the Hudson, 
he missed nothing but Primogeniture. He visited the Peni- 
tentiaries; and the great New York Canal could ne* fail to make 
a suitable impression on him. Other scenes which he witnessed 
are thus described: 

*' As the windings of the Canal brought us in sight of fresh 
vistas, new cultivation, new villages, new bridges, new aque- 
ducts, rose at every moment, mingled up with scattered dwell- 
ings, mills, churches, all span new. The scene looked really 
one of enchantment." 

"On the 19th of June, we reached Syracuse, through the 
very centre of which the Erie Canal passes. During the drive, 
we had opportunities of seeing the land in various stages of its 



96 

progress, from the dense, black, tangled, native, forest, up to 
the highest stages of cultivation, with wheat and barley waving 
over it; or from that melancholy, and very hopeless looking 
state of things, when the trees are laid prostrate upon the earth, 
one upon top of another, and a miserable log-hut is the only 
symptom of man's residence, to such gay and thriving places 
as Syracuse, with fine broad streets, large and commodious 
houses, gay shops, and stage coaches, wagons, and gigs, flying 
past, all in a bustle. In the centre of the village, we could 
see from our windows the canal thickly covered with freight 
boats and packets, glancing silently past, and shooting like ar- 
rows through the bridges, some of which were stone, and some 
of painted wood." 

*' Every now and then, we came to villages, consisting of 
several hundred houses; and in the middle, I observed there 
were always several Churches." 

*'The village of Utica, stands a step higher in this progres- 
sive scale of civilization; for it has several Church Spires rising 
over it, and at no great distance an institution, called Hamilton 
College, intended, I was told, for the higher branches of sci- 
ence. We also visited Syracuse, a village with extensive salt- 
works close to it: and had numerous opportunities of examining 
the Erie Canal, and the great high-road to Buffalo; so that what 
with towns and cities, Indians, forests, cleared and cultivated 
lands, girdled trees, log-houses, painted churches, villas, canals, 
and manufactories, and hundreds of thousands of human beings, 
starting into life, all within the ken of one day's rapid journey, 
there was plenty of stuff for the imagination to work upon." 

'' Often, too, without much warning, we came in sight of 
busy villages, ornamented with tall white spires, topping above 
towers, in which the taste of the villagers had placed green Ve- 
nitian blinds; and, at the summit of all, handsome gilt weather- 
cocks glittering and crowing, as it seemed, in triumph over the 
poor forest." 

*' Our next halt was at the end of an extremely pretty lake, 
not quite so large as the two last vve had visited, but still an ex- 
tensive piece of water. This lake, and the village which stands 
at the northern extremity, are called Canandaigua. I may re- 
mark, that the term village, conveys a different idea to us from 
what it does to an American. The word town would seem 
more appropriate, as these villages are not composed of cottages 
clustered together, but of fine houses, divided by wide streets, 
and embellished by groves of trees and flower gardens. At cer- 
tain corners of all these villages, or towns, blacksmiths, coopers, 
and other artisans are to be found; but, generally speaking, the 
houses at Canandaigua, for instance, have more the appearance 
of separate country houses, than of mere component parts of a 
village. In the centre there is always left an open space or 
market place, with showy hotels on one sidej the court-house 



97 

on the other; and perhaps a Church, and a Meeting-House, to 
complete the Square.'' 

" Canandaigua lies nearly in the centre of Ontario county, a 
large tract of which was purchased many years ago, I believe in 
1790, by some English gentlemen, who paid about five cents an 
acre for it, or about two pence halfpenny. Great part of it has 
since been sold at prices varying from one and two dollars, to 
ten, and even twenty dollars. '^ 

*' In the meantime, we had abundant ocular demonstration of 
the respect paid to the subject of Religion; for scarcely a single 
village, however small, was without a Church." 

" On the 26th of June, 1827, we strolled through the village 
of Rochester, under the guidance of a most obliging and intel- 
ligent friend, a native of this part of the country. Every thing 
in this bustling place appeared to be in motion. The very streets 
seemed to be starting up of their own accord, ready made, and 
looking as fresh and new, as if they had been turned out of the 
workmen's hands but an hour before; or that a great boxful of 
new houses had been sent by steam from New York, and tum- 
bled out on the half-cleared land. The canal banks were at some 
places still unturfed: the lime seemed hardly dry in the mason- 
ry of the aqueduct, in the bridges, in the numberless great saw- 
mills and manufactories. In many of these buildings, the peo- 
ple were at work below stairs, while at top the carpenters were 
busy nailing on the planks of the roof." 

" Some dwellings were half painted, while the foundations of 
others, within five yards distance, were only beginning. I can- 
not say how many churches, court-houses, jails, and hotels, I 
counted, all in motion, creeping upwards. Several streets were 
nearly finished, but had not yet received their names; and many 
others were in the reverse predicament, being named, but not 
commenced, their local habitations being merely signified by 
lines of stakes. Here and there we saw great warehouses, with- 
out window sashes, but half filled with goods, and furnished 
with hoisting cranes, ready to fish up the huge pyramids of flour 
barrels, bales, and boxes lying in the streets. In the centre of 
the town, the spire of a Presbyterian Church rose to a great 
height, and, on each side of the supporting tower, was to be 
seen the dial plate of a clock, of which the machinery, in the 
hurry-skurry, had been left at New York. I need not say, that 
these half-finished, whole finished, and embryo streets were 
crowded with people, carts, stages, cattle, pigs, far beyond the 
reach of numbers; and as all these were lifting up their voices 
together, in keeping with the clatter of hammers, the ringing of 
axes, and the cracking of machinery, there was a fine concert, I 
assure you!" 

" But it struck us, that the interest of the town, for it seems 
idle to call it a village, was subordinate to that of the suburbs. 

IS 



98 

A few years ago, the whole of that part of the country was cO' 
vered with a dark, silent forest, and even as it was, we could 
not proceed a mile in any direction, except that of the high 
road, without coming full-butt against the woods of time imme- 
morial" 

" Lockport, is celebrated over the United States as the site 
of a double set of canal locks, admirably executed, side by side, 
five in each, one for boats going up, the other for those coming 
down the canal. The original level of the rocky table land about 
Lockport is somewhat, though not much, higher than the sur- 
face of Lake Erie, from which it is distant, by the line of the 
canal, about thirty miles. In order to obtain the advantage of 
having such an inexhaustible reservoir as Lake Erie for a feeder 
to the canal, it became necessary to cut down the top of the ridge 
on which Lockport stands, to bring the canal level somewhat 
below that of the lake. For this purpose, a magnificent exca- 
vation, called the Deep Cutting, several miles in length, with an 
average depth of twenty-five feet, was made through a compact, 
horizontal limestone stratum, a work of great expense and la- 
bour, and highl}' creditable to all parties concerned." 

" The Erie Canal is 363 miles in length, 40 feet wide at the 
surface, 28 at bottom, and four feet deep. There are 83 locks 
of masonry, each 90 feet long, by 15 wide. The elevation of 
Lake Erie above the Hudson, at Albany, is about 555 feet; but 
the lockage up and down on the whole voyage is 662 feet." 

Yet, amidst all these scenes, the only reflection which escapes 
from Captain Hall is a denunciation of the "blighting tempest 
of democracy," for having done away with Primogeniture and 
Entails. At this early period, too, he detects '' a wish, when 
asking for information, to prove my original and prejudiced con- 
ceptions right, [forgetting, we presume, his efforts, in England, 
to "persuade others," to abandon prejudices "I had myself re- 
linquished,"] rather than to discover that I had previously done 
the people injustice." He here introduces, also, a sort of elegy 
on a dead tree, evidently for the mere purpose of venting his 
spleen at what he deems the heartlessness of hnprovement. 

" An American settler can hnrdly conceive the horror with 
which a foreigner beholds such numbers of magnificent trees 
standing round him, ivith their throats cut, the very Banquos 
of the murdered forest. The process of girdling is this: — a 
circular cut or ring, two or three inches deep, is made with an 
axe quite round the tree, at about five feet from the ground. 
This, of course, puts an end to vegetable life; and the destruc- 
tion of the tree being accelerated by the action of fire, these 
wretched trunks in a year or two, present the most miserable 
objects of decrepitude that can be conceived. The purpose, 
however, of the farmer is gained, and that is all he can be ex- 
pected to look to. His corn crop is no longer overshaded by 



99 

the leaves of these unhappy trees, which, in process of time, 
are cut down and split into railings, or sawed into billets of 
fretvood, and their misery is at an eiid." 

Surely, however natural, and even laudable, it may be to cul- 
tivate an almost superstitious reverence for large trees in Scot- 
land, where their scarcity induced Dr. Johnson to despair of re- 
covering " so valuable a piece of timber," as his lost cudgel, 
yet Captain Hall ought to have gone to x\merica better prepared 
to command his feelings. Even in England, Gray, — the most 
sensitive of poets, — thought this '* cutting of throats," a not 
unpleasing rural image. 

"How bowed the woods, beneath theh sturdy stroke." 

Viewing the above as a specimen of the tourist's more ambi- 
tious style, — on which he has evidently put forth his whole 
strength, — we may remark, that it falls far short of the cele- 
brated passage which he evidently had in his eye when penning 
it. The transition is too abrupt from the rutting down to the ter- 
mination of the misery, without noticing the intermediate stages 
of pain and degradation. Swift has managed the matter much 
better and deduced a fine moral lesson. 

" This single stick which you now behold ingloriously lying 
in that neglected corner, I once knew in a flourishing state in a 
forest; it was full of sap, full of leaves, and full of boughs, but 
now, &c.," '■^ at length worn to the stumps in the service of 
the maids, it is either thrown out of doors, or condemned to the 
last one of kindhng a fire. When I beheld this, I sighed, and 
said within myself, surely man is a broomstick. Nature sent 
him into the world strong and lusty, in a thriving condition, 
wearing his own hair on his head, the proper branches of this 
reasoning vegetable, until the axe of intemperance, &c." (Me- 
ditations on a Broomstick.) 

But Captain Hall begins to snuff the air of Canada, and can- 
not be longer detained. *'We found ourselves once more in 
his Majesty's dominions, after having passed six weeks in the 
United States." His joy is tumultuous. "The air we breathed 
seemed different — the sky, the land, the whole scenery appeared 
to be altered." It is impossible to avoid some misgivings at the 
burst of delight with which he thus hails his escape. It seems 
to be of evil omen as to the feeling with which we may expect 
him to re-enter the close air of the republic. 

At Niagara, he expresses, in terms adequately inflated, his 
admiration of the Falls. We feel more interested, and alarmed, 
at his very minute advice to the proprietor of Goat Island, which 
almost impends terrifically over the cataract, viz. — " To make 
a gravel ivalk all round the island, broad enough for three per- 
sons to walk abreast; to open little paths in the direction of the 
best situations for seeing the Falls, and having put down half-a- 



100 

dozen commodious seals at the said points, to leave all tiie rest 
to the choice of the worthy tourists themselves." (Vol. i. p. 
192.) Should the proprietor ever Jill one item of this uphol- 
stering order, we sincerely hope that he may be thrown over 
the cataract by an indignant community. Doubtless Captain 
Hall would make these " commodious" seats out of the great 
fallen black oak! 

He witnessed, also, the operations at the proposed Welland 
Canal, and finding " all the locks constructed of wood," re- 
marks, " It always struck me that the locks on the Erie or New 
York Canal, might have been advantageously made, in like man- 
ner, of timber." Much caution, we fear, is necessary in listen- 
ing to our tourist's advice, whether it relate to primogeniture, 
entails, or wooden locks. Mr. M'Taggart, civil engineer, in- 
spected these works three months before Captain Hall was there, 
and in his recent work, remarks, (vol. ii. p. 162,) *' This report 
was not very well received by the shareholders, but they were 
quite unable to deny any of its statements, they tvould work 
away as they had done, regardless of my remarks, and had 
the felicity of observing some of their wooden locks float down 
before the freshets, like large bird cages, into Lake Ontario." 

On the 16th July, 1827, they left the Falls, and proceeded by 
land through Canada, as far as Kingston on the St. Lawrence. 
The equipage is thus described: — " For want of a better con- 
veyance we were obliged to travel in a vehicle, dignified by the 
name of a wagon, but which, in fact, was neither more nor less 
than a good, honest, rattling, open cart." On the third day, 
'^ the axletree gave way, and down we came on our broadside. 
A dwelling was near at hand, but upon trying the doors they 
were found all locked." He adds, pathetically, "There we 
were left in the middle of a Canadian forest, at night-fall, sur- 
rounded by swamps, sonorous with innumerable bull frogs, and 
by an atmosphere clogged with noxious vapours, and clouded 
with moschetoes." At length they got "again in motion;, 
though in a still less magnificent conveyance, literally a common 
two-wheeled farm-cart, with nothing but a bimch of straw to 
break the violence of the jolts." He speaks thus of the road 
from Credit River to York: — '* Being formed of the trunks of 
trees, laid cross ways, without any coating of earth or stones, it 
was more abominably jolty than aqy thing a European imagina- 
tion can conceive. Over these horrible wooden causeways, tech- 
nically called corduroy roads, it would be misery to travel in any 
description of carriage; but in a wagon or cart, with nothing 
but wooden springs, it is most trying to every joint in one's 
body." In the ox-cart, and over such roads, they entered York 
the capital of Upper Canada. As they left this place next morn- 
ing, the 19th, we presume that after the joltings of the corduroy 
roads, beside a "minute" examination of an Indian village. 



101 

through which they had passed, they could have had little time 
or spirits for a survey of the Capital. We are constrained, there- 
fore, from the Captain's total silence, to pause for a moment in 
order to introduce to the reader information from another quar- 
ter, which will be deemed, at least, equally trustworthy; viz. 
Mr. Talbot's **Five Years' Residence in Canada," published in 
London in 1824, a work to which we shall again have occasion 
to refer. He will scarcely be excepted to on the ground of any 
hostile political bias, for he informs us that he chose Canada as 
a residence in preference to the United States, because he was 
unwilling to " become a subject of a country avowedly hostile 
to that in which his family had for many centuries flourished in 
the sunshine of British protection — to separate himself for ever 
from British institutions, and British laws, and to be compelled 
to teach his little children the political creed of a republic, for 
which he could himself never feel a sentiment of attachment;" 
and he professes to be well satisfied with his selection. This 
gentleman states the number of souls in York to be 1336, and 
adds, " He who first fixed upon this spot as the site of the ca- 
pital of Upper Canada, whatever predilection he may have had 
for the roaring of frogs, or for the effluvia arising from stagnated 
waters and putrid vegetables, can certainly have had no very 
great regard for preserving the lives of his Majesty's subjects." 
On the 19th, they visited a place called Holland's Landings 
" to witness the annual distribution of presents, as they are 
called, made by Government to the Indians." Here they stayed 
all night, and the Captain, though we cannot divine his motive,^ 
seems to have inventoried the furniture of the house in which 
he slept with all that minuteness which would be so commend- 
able had he been seizing it, as a sworn officer, under a landlord's 
warrant. There was, in brief, "plenty" of it; it was *' com- 
fortable" and "handsome," and "chiefly of the bird's-eye ma- 
ple." The house may be recognised hereafter, by any future 
traveller, as "a most agreeable" one, and as being "surrounded 
by a large flower garden, intersected in all directions by well- 
shaded gravel and turf walks." His next sentence "spindles 
into longitude immense," well corresponding with its excursive 
character, for its object is to state that from one of the apart- 
ments, " a single step placed us in a verandah, as wide as the 
room itself, bounded in front, and at both ends by trellis-work, 
so thickly twined with hop vines, that the sun, and that sli/l 
inore troublesome intruder, the blazing glare of a red hot sky, 
had no chance for admission, while the breeze from the gar- 
den easily made its way, perfumed and tempered like the suU 
try loinds of Hindostan, after passing those ingenious, ar- 
tijicial mattings, called tatties, formed of sweet scented 
grass, and suspended dripping loet before the doors andtvin" 
dows, during the heat of the day, in the hotter parts of In' 
dia,'' On the 20th, we presume they made out to get back to 



102 

York, as on the 21st, they start thence for Kingston. On quit- 
ting the Capital they were disposed to laugh at the awful ac- 
counts given of the roads, "supposing that the previous journey 
between the Credit River and York, had broken us in for any 
high-ways and by-ways we were likely to encounter again. In 
process of travelling, however, as the daylight faded, our hopes 
subsided. The clear and airy country w^as exchanged for close, 
choky woods; the horrible corduroy roads again made their ap- 
pearance in a more formidable shape, by the addition of deep, 
inky holes, which almost swallowed up, &c." "I shall not 
compare this evening's drive to trotting up or down a pair of 
stairs, for in that case there would be some kind of regularity 
in the developnient of the bumps, but with us there was no 
warning — no pause." Nor were their perils merely those by 
land, on this first day's journey from the Capital. " On reach- 
ing the spot lohere a bridge once stood, but stood no longer, 
we observed a little boy paddling in a canoe." With the aid of 
the boy they got over, " one at a time," and " the horse was 
towed across secundum artem, by the nose — an operation of 
some delicacy, both to actors and spectators." The carriage was 
dragged across; "but the united strength of all the party, males 
and females, old and young, combined, could not budge it more 
than a foot out of the water." At length, by an ingenious con- 
trivance, it was drawn " triumphantly to land." But the effort 
had exhausted them. " We reached our sleeping place fatigued 
to the last gasp.^^ Next day, 22nd July, they arrived at Co- 
burg, distant " forty-three miles, in thirteen hours, of as rough 
travelling as ever was performed by wheeled carriage." On the 
way they fell in with a field preacher, " a tall, sallow, anxious- 
looking man, of the Methodist persuasion, as we were informed, 
dressed in a loose surtout coat, of a purple colour, with a yellow 
silk handkerchief tied round his head." Captain Hall remarks, 
" In those luild regions, where no toivns, and not many vil- 
lages are yet to be found, places of regular worship are neces- 
sarily ' few and far between,' and these itinerant preachers, in 
spite of some occasional extravagancies, must, upon the ivhole-, 
do good." He speaks of "that large class of persons in the 
country through which we were travelling, many of whom, but 
for such occasions as these, ivould otherwise be left altogether 
without jjublic worship. For we can easily believe that in the 
midst of the woods, where the population are employed all the 
week long at hard labour, and the neighbourhood is but scantily 
settled, there can be very little or none of that example, or 
that public opinion, which are found so efficacious elsewhere 
to encourage good morals, and to check bad habits. Under 
such circumstances there will, almost of necessity, be little at- 
tention paid to these duties, which ought to be paramount to 
all others, but which often require, unfortunately, most encou- 
ragement and assistance, where the means of lending such aids 



i03 

are smallest. Every thing, therefore, which stimulates people 
to come together expressly for such a purpose— wo matter how 
absurd the manner may sometimes he in which the service is 
conducted — must prove beneficial." 

Mr. Talbot, also, laments this state of things, and gives ^^ a 
few practical illustrations of Canadian morality, and of the prox- 
imate causes of the grossness of manners^ and of the semi-har- 
barism, v/hich are much too prevalent." Mr. Huskisson, whilst 
Colonial Secretary, remarked, in the House of Commons, as to 
the inattention to Education in Canada. " This is a sijbject 
never thought of. In point of fact, the state of things is suth, 
that the settlers feel more disposed to connect themselves with 
those districts which border on the United States, where they 
can better have their ivants of this description supplied, and 
receive the benefits of the administration of justice, than to 
remain in the country to which they owe allegiance.'' (Debate 
of 182S.) 

On the 23d July, 1S27, they proceeded to visit the Settlement, 
formed by the Irish Emigrants, sent to Canada, by the British 
Government, in 1825. The distance, thirty miles, was got over 
in sixteen hours and a half, and they reached the newly erected 
village of Peterborough, " more dead than alive with fatigue." 
His ever active mind this day suggests a valuable idea on the 
subject of harness. " When we had got half way, the wagon 
broke down; but fortunately it was in our power to repair the 
mischief, by knotting a couple of silk handkerchiefs together, 
which, by the by, on such occasions, make a very good rope.'' 
He dwells much on the settlement, and considers the experiment 
to have proved very successful. '' Tliere were 2024 settlers 
sent by Government, in 1825, at the total cost of 24/. 5s. ■id., 
per head, each family being supplied with provisions for fifteen 
months, and a hundred acres of land, besides a cow, and other 
minor aids." His information was derived from the Officers of 
the Establishment, from the owners of property in the neigh- 
bourhood, and from some of the emigrants. A conversation 
with one of the last is sufficiently characteristic. " The Agent 
happened one day to meet an old man in the village, and know- 
ing him to be a shrewd person, and well-informed upon all that 
had passed, he thought his conversation might serve my pur- 
poses. He, therefore, said to the emigrant, that a gentleman 
had arrived, who wished to put some questions to him. The 
old boy immediately took alarm, lest, as he said, the gentleman 
had come to interfere with his property, or to bother him in 
some way he did know what. ' What shall I say to the gen- 
tleman, sir?' was his first question. 'Why, Cornelius,' said 
the Agent, ' tell the truth.' ' Oh! yes, sir, I know that very 
well, of course, we must always tell the truth, but if I only 
knew what the gentleman wanted, I would know which way 



104 

to answer.^ * I don't know what you mean, Cornelius,' said 
the Agent. *0h! sir, you know quite well what I mean. 
Should I overstate matters, sir, or should I understate them? 
Shall I make things appear better or ivorse than they are?^'^ 
It is amusing to note how soon this shrewd old Irishman fa- 
thomed our Captain. The latter had just spoken before of its 
being "a principal object," that the emigrants should " turn out 
loyal and grateful subjects of their king." He is not a moment 
in conversation with the old man, before Cornelius breaks out, 
"^'Oh! yes! to be sure I am! we owe every thing in the world 
to the Government — that is, to the king, his majesty, long life 
to him!" Another of these "odd fellows," caught, in a mo- 
ment, at the Captain's foible, as a Scotchm'^n, — his admiration 
of large trees. '* I stood for some time admiring it, and think- 
ing what a pity it was that such a glorious tree should be felled 
to the earth, and still more, that it should be afterwards chopped 
up and burnt along with vulgar pine logs." He entreats the 
owner to spare it. " Very well, sir! very well! it shall be yours 
from this moment; and if you will give me leave it shall bear 
your name! and a fence shall be put round it! and while I 
have breath in my body there it shall stand, you may be sure, 
and even after me, if my children will respect their father's 
wishes. Do you hear thaty boys?'' The Captain complacent- 
ly adds, " I have since received a letter from a friend in that 
quarter of the ivorld, in Vv'hich the following passage occurs: 
"'I have been over to see the good folks at Peterborough and 
Douro, since you left us. Your visit there with JNIrs. Hall, is 
held in the most pleasing recollection; and Welsh, the Irish emi- 
grant, vows eternal vengeance against any one that shall dare tc 
do the least injury to Captain Hall's oak!''' 

Surely the savages of Loo Choo deserve little credit for hav- 
ing quizzed our tourist so egregiously as it seems to be now ad- 
mitted they did. 

Human felicity is, at best, imperfect. Thus, it leaks out with 
regard to these Settlers: " zy there had been any thing inju- 
dicious, it consisted in giving people, accustomed to very scanty 
fare, too ample an allowance of food. This over indulgence^ 
not only hurt the health of the people, but tended in some de- 
gree to slacken the individual exertions of the settlers to main- 
tain themselves." One of Captain Hall's correspondents says, 
(vol. i. p. 335,) ''From observa.tion, 1 think the Government 
did too much for those already out, and still the committee pro- 
pose to do too much for any that may be sent out; they are not 
left to find resource from their own industry and energy. 
While the rations last, many of the emigrants make little exer- 
tion, and dispose of food they have not been used to, such as 
pork,ybr whiskey, thereby injuring their constitutions and mo- 
rals, and fixing for a time habits of idleness." Another speak- 



105 

ing of the Irish, generally, remarks, " Douro settlers are, at 
present, all Irish, and though doing very well, yet from their 
former indolent habits they have not exerted themselves as much 
as they might, being addicted to ^king a little too much whis- 
key, and, by doing so, lose a great deal of time. A thousand 
arguments might be produced in favour of mixing English and 
Scots settlers, with the Irish here, not so much for their mode 
of farming, as from the good example they would give of so- 
briety, regularity, morality, and steadiness; not fond of visii- 
ing, card-j)laying, carousing, or party spirit Great benefits 
would arise from a number of Scots emigrnnts being introduced 
amongst the Irish. Tiiey are proverbial for good conduct," &c. 
The benefits confsrred by this Settlement upon the "gentle- 
men in the neighbourhood," on whose testimony Captain Hall 
greatly relies, may be judged of by a passage in a letter from 
one of them, (vol. i. p. 319,} in which he declares, that he was 
about to abandon the neighbourhood, when *• Mr. P. Robinson 
came to my house, and mentioned to me his intention of bring- 
ing up the emigrants, to these back townships. At once we 
gave up every idea of removing, the clouds dispersed, all our 
difficulties seemed to be over.'''' The account which the same 
person gives of his previous troubles is sufficiently pitiable. 
Some kind friends had, it seems, pi'epared the " nevv abode" of 
himself and family, in the woods, but " there was no partition 
put up; even on the floors, the boards were scarcely sufficient 
to prevent the children's feet from going through. When wc 
set about to prepare our beds we found the floor covered above 
an inch thick with ice, of which we removed as much as we 
colild with axes and spades, and then put a layer of chips and 
shavings, upon which we spread our mattresses and blankets; 
then, having hung up some blankets at the doors, and also for 
partitions, we lay down to rest, being pretty well fatigued; and, 
upon looking upwards from our beds, we saw the sky through 
the roof, and have often during the time we lay in that manner, 
amused ourselves watching the stars passing, and others reap- 
pearing." The snow, at this period of star-gazing, was, he as- 
serts, "nearly knee deep." He was on the point of being burnt 
out in consequence of the fashion of building chimneys with 
cross sticks, plastered with clay; " but this had been built in se- 
vere frost, so that the clay did not adhere, and the sticks caught 
fire." For food, they " were glad to gather any wild plants 
which we were told could be safely used as greens. " " We have 
often used tea made of the young shoots of the hemlock pine." 
** I have gone out with my ox-team, and a man io forage, (vol. 
i. p. 317,) and after travelling an entire day, returned with a cou- 
ple of sheep that had not a pound of fat upon them, a little pork, 
and a few fowls, and when crossing the river just ne.ir my house, 
have been near losing the whole cargo, by the strong current." 

14 



106 

*' My wife was confined, and I had to send fifteen miles for a 
nurse-tender, who reached us with much difficulty, as she was 
obliged to walk through woods where no road had ever been cut, 
and to be carried sometimes across swamps, and lifted over 
large logs." No wonder the poor man was rejoiced, when Mr. 
Peter Robinson came at last to deliver the whole family. 

We are very far from wishing to go into the history of this 
Irish Settlement as disclosed in the Parliamentary Documents. 
Our object has, merely, been to exhibit Captain Hall's powers 
in the weighing of testimony, and the eagerness with which he 
listened to clamorous professions of " loyalty," on the part of 
those, who, from his own showing, were ready to go into the 
other extreme, had they discovered a wish that matters should 
be "understated." The interest of the Agent and the other 
Officers, who have charge of these out-pensioners of Great Bri- 
tain, in representing the project as successful, and as claiming 
the farther countenance of the Government, is obvious. The 
Settler to whom the Agent referred Captain Hall for informa- 
tion made rather an Irish blunder, it is true; but what do we un- 
derstand by his telling that officer to his face, that he " knew 
very well," what was meant by asking for a cue as to oversta- 
ting or understating? We need not, surely, remark on the mo- 
tives of the people in the neighbourhood for wishing to keep up 
an establishment, which not only had brought settlers amongst 
them, and caused an enormous disbursement of public money, 
but whose continuance led every day to an increase of these 
comfortable incidents. Yet on such testimony, our tourist makes 
this flourishing assertion, " The universal satisfaction expressed 
by these people is creditable to the Statesman, I believe Mr. 
Wilmot Horton, who devised the experiment, to Mr. Peter Ro- 
binson, by whose skill and patience it was carried through its 
many difficulties, and, also, to the good sense, moderation, and 
industry of the poor emigrants themselves." 

Captain Hall's opportunities of forming an opinion may be 
judged of from the length of his stay, — a fact, by the way, which 
it requires us to look very closely into his book to ascertain. 
If, indeed, we could believe him capable of a paltry artifice, 
there would seem an anxiety that this fact should not be readily 
discoverable. He abandons, suddenly, the form of journalizing, 
and the day ot the month disappears for sixty pages. He says, 
*' I went during my stay as much as possible amongst the set- 
tlers, frequerdly alone, sometimes with the agent, and several 
times with the clergyman. 1 had, also, many opportunities of 
conversing ' 'ith gentlemen, &c." In speaking of his conversa- 
tion with " Cornelius," he prefaces it by saying, (p. 286, vol. 
i. ) The Agent happened one day to meet an old man in the 
village, and knowing him to be a shrewd person," &c. Far- 
ther on, (pw 290,) he says. "On the 24th of July, I took a 



107 

iong ride," &c. Now it would scarcely occur to the reader 
after what had gone before, unless he watched narrowly, that 
this very 24th July, was in fact, the only day that the Captain 
had an opportunity of seeing the Settlement Yet such is the 
fact. He reaches the place on the night of the 23rd, *' more 
dead than alive," (p. 280-281. On the 24th, he takes a long 
ride, (p. 290.) On the next day, 25th, he " intended to have 
resumed these researches, but, it rained so violently, that we 
were confined most of the morning within doors. About noon 
it cleared up: but the paths cut by the settlers through the fo- 
rest, were now mostly covered with water, and rendered so slip- 
pery and clammy, that walking ivas scarcely possible. Every 
bough that was touched, sent down such a shower of drops that 
I got soundly ducked, before reaching a shanty in the thicket, 
where I found a hardy fellow," &c. This hardy fellow is the 
one on whose premises " Captain Hall's oak" stands, and it is 
apparent, that his examination was not farther pursued, but that 
he returned to guard against the consequences of his sound duck- 
ing. Then occurs a long and deceiving space filled with letters, 
&c. until we reach p. 347. He arrived at Kingston on the 28th, 
(p. 349.) His intermediate movements are thus traced. It had 
occupied the whole of the 23d, starting early and arriving late, 
to reach the settlement from Coburg. The return journey must 
have been on the 26th, and it took at least as much time; for the 
vehicle broke down twice, (p. 347,) and they had to waik six miles, 
(ib.).. " In the course of the next morning," 27th, (ib.) they meet 
witir a disaster whilst travelling by land. At the Bay of Quinte, 
they took the water, and on the 2Sth, reached Kingston, (p. 349.) 

Thus, as we have said, Captain Hall enjoyed but a single day's 
observation, and yet a cursory reader could hardly fail to be mis- 
led by the confusing circumstances to which we have referred, 
and, in particular, by the leisurely lounging way, in which he 
speaks of meeting, " one day," a very shrewd settler. The ques- 
tion then, becomes one of Hours. We must bear in mind that 
the Captain is a very late riser (vol. i. p. 399;) he has no idea of 
getting up with " the stupid eocks who have nothing else to do 
but crow." (ib.) 

He must take his breakfast before starting, (p. 400,) and that 
meal with him is a " long desultory sort of" one (p. 401.) Af- 
ter breakfast he must be allowed time to "think of shaving" (ib.) 
before he can make up his mind to that important operation. He 
defends his system on Epicurean principles, and is of opinion 
that " We leisurely travellers, who despise and abhor the idea 
of getting over the stage before breakfast^ in the end io do 
just as much as your early stirring folks; with this difference, 
that we make the journey a pleasure — they, a toil." (p. 399.) 
It must be recollected, also, that he had reached the Irish set- 
tlement, the night before, " more dead than alive with fa- 
tigue,"(p. 281) — an apology for even unusual indulgence. Sup- 



108 

posing, however, our Captain fairly in the field on the 24th, a 
great deal of time is to be deducted before we can arrive at any 
thing like a true estimate of the portion of it devoted to the Irish 
settlers. Thus, on the same day, he visited "several older es- 
tablishments, "(p. 290,) at one of which he found " an old 
Scotchman, from Banff, with a jolly red nose, in shape and co- 
lour like the sweet potatoe of that country, a prosing old body, 
xvho brightened up, however, amazingly, when I told him where 
I came from, and I had much ado to escape a sound dose of whis- 
key which he wished to force upon me for countryman's sake." 
He went, also, to Smith'sTown, "an establishment of emigrants 
of nine years' standing." If we subtract, farther, the necessa- 
ry time for meals, from which Captain Hall will not be drawn 
for love or money, we may be able to judge of the opportunity 
he enjoyed of forming an opinion vvith regard to a Settlement 
of Two Thousand and Twenty-Four persons " scattered over 
an extensive district of country," ''(p. 285.) 

Judging of this Settlement from other sources of information, 
we are led to believe the Captain's impressions to be as errone- 
ous as they were hastily formed. Mr. Southey, in his recent 
Colloquies, after referring minutely to the Parliamentary Docu- 
ments, considers it to have " failed as to its primary purpose," 
and in reference to the numbers who have " availed themselves 
of the assistance of the parishes, or of the State, only for the 
sake of a passage, at the public expense, to this promised land," 
(the United States,) he adds, '• I do not see how any suclucon- 
sideration should affect the policy of the government with re- 
gard to what is deemed its surplus population, unless it were by 
directing its emigrants rather to South Africa and Australia, 
than to its North American possessions." Captain Hall him- 
self, in returning from Canada to the United States, says, pee- 
vishly, that there was on board the Steam-boat, "a large party 
of Irish emigrants, who, for reasons best known to themselves, 
had not chosen to settle in Canada, but to «fj««flfer farther south 
in quest of fortune." 

In a yet more recent work, ("Three Years in Canada, by 
John M'Taggart, Civil Engineer," (vol. ii. p. 248,) we find the 
following remarks: — " Let some plan, therefore, be found to 
keep these people in bread at home; and I think it is possible to 
find out one. Perhaps I may be considered too severe on this 
subject, and were I not speaking from practical experience the 
accuracy of my statements might be doubted. Tlie Irish land- 
holder and the philanthropist are also its advocates; the first, be- 
cause it tends to rid his unfortunate country of a portion of its 
misery; the second, for the same reason, with this addition; that 
while ii weeds misery out of Ireland, it does not plant it in Ca- 
nada — which is not the fact, for it does plant it there, and in a 
more melancholy point of view." 

Nothing remarkable happened to the Captain on his passage 



109 

from the Irish settlement to Kingston, except that the lives of 
his party were saved on one occasion by " the skill and promp- 
titude" of an American (^i^ Jonathan,") who arrested the vehicle 
when in a predicament that " had nearly proved fatal." 

At Kingston he took up his quarters in the Dock-yard, and 
" did scarcely any thing else but. eat, drink, and sleep, till the 
30th of July." He then returned, by water, to Niagara, and 
reached Kingston again, by the same mode of Conveyance, on 
the 3d of August, and, -ifter making an excursion across the 
Lake to the American shore, embarked in a batteau to descend 
the St. Lawrence. He reached Brockville next day, and at- 
tended a public dinner, and made a Speech, and, thanks to the 
vanity of the orator, he has not been able to resist the tempta- 
tion of inserting it. This precious piece of eloquence not only 
discloses the temper which he really cherished towards the 
United States, but answers, incidentally, another purpose. He 
is very anxious to impress on us, the idea that he is one of 
your blunt, plain-spoken, people, who are under a sort of con- 
stitutional inability to despise their offensive sentiments, — one 
who, though a sailor, " would not flatter Neptune for his tri- 
dent." We have seen what had fallen under his observation 
in Canada. We recollect his regret that there was " little or 
none of that example, or that public opinion which are found 
so efficacious, elsewhere, to encourage good morals and check 
bad habits." The only religious worship he witnessed was in 
the woods, where he heard a field preacher, whose clerical garb 
was " a loose surtout coat, of a purple colour, with a yellow 
silk handkerchief tied round his head," and he hopes, in the ab- 
sence of any thing better, that the CNhortations of even these 
" itinerant preachers must do good in spite of some occasional 
extravagancies." We proceed to the Speech. 

Its leading 2(nd anxious object is to deride the notion of " In- 
dependence," as inconsistent with the mutual aid and support 
which are involved in our relations political, social, and domes- 
tic: •' For my part I consider that no thoroughly independent 
man is worth a Jig.^' There was something striking in this 
exordium, and the orator says, complacently, " Here My Speech 
was interrupted by an ambiguous sort of laugh, and I could see 
n puzzled expression playing on the countenances of many of 
my audience.'" 

After speaking of the ruinous consequences to himself, if he 
should foolishly "take it into his head, like Tom Thumb, to 
swear he would be a Rebel, and decline his Majesty's farther 
employment," he remarks, " I fear you might say I meant to 
be personal, if I were to make out any analogy between the ab- 
surd looking case I have just put, and that of England and the 
Canadas. But as there is a more apposite illustration near at 
hand, I shall say no more than beg you will study it for your 
edification.^* He proceeds, " It has been my good fortune to 



no 

visit many countries, and to see governments of all known de- 
nominations, and all a^es; from that of China, which has ex- 
isted as it stands for some thousands of years, to that of Peru, of 
which I witnessed the very birth, — and a queer looking political 
baby it was! It has also fallen in my way to see another de- 
scription of infant, which, as you well know, was of age on 
the day it was born, but whether it has grown older or younger, 
strotiger or iveaker, by time, I leave you to judge. Amongst 
all these different countries I have seen very few which unite so 
many advantages as Canada, where the soil, the climate, and 
what is vastly more valuable, the public G'^vernment, and the 
tone of private manners[\] are so well calculated to advance 
the happiness of m nkind. You are not yet so unfortunate 
as to be independent of England, in the ordinary acceptation of 
the term — neither is she of you; but you are much better off." 
We would ask if there can be discovered, in all this, the 
slightest reference to that great purpose for which Captain Hall 
represents himself to have undertaken this Tour? He has re- 
marked, (vol. ii. p. 343,) " To assert, for instance, that such a 
country as America could be fairly judged of in six weeks, would 
be more absurd than to say that justice could not be done to it in 
six years." Yet after a period of observation so short that it 
would be absurd to draw any inference from it, he is found hold- 
ing up the United States to derision — and declaring plainly that 
they had — as a warning — retrograded in consequence of pos- 
sessing the power of self-government. The object which he had 
at heart was " to soften in some degree the asperity of that ill 
will of which it was impossible to deny the existence, and which 
was looked upon by many persons, in both countries, as a se- 
rious international evil." He declares, " I was really desirous 
of seeing every thing relating to the people, country, and i?i- 
stitutio7is, in the m^ost favourable light; and was resolved to 
represent to my countrymen what was good in colours, which 
might incline them to think," &c. Yet on the first opportuni- 
ty which he enjoys of addressing British subjects — and those, 
too, who are in immediate contact with Americans — all his 
powers of sarcasm are employed to render odious and ridiculous, 
what it pleases him to treat as characteristic of their neighbours. 
He asks his hearers to thank God that they are not so " unfor- 
tunate," as to be in the same predicament with ourselves. And 
this is stated as the result of his personal observation: *' It has 
fallen in my way to see, &lc." Let us recollect, too, what Cap- 
tain Hall has told us of the workings of his own mind, (vol. i. 
p. 167:) " The melancholy truth is, that when oncewe express 
any opinions, especially if we use strong terms for that purpose, 
a sort o( parental fondness springs up for the offspring of our 
lips, and we are ready to defend them for no better reason than 
because we gave them birth. Travellers, therefore, and others, 
should be cautious how they bring such a fine family of opinions 



Ill 

into the world, which they can neither maintain respectably, nor 
get rid of without a certain degree of inconsistency^ generally 
painful, and sometimes ridiculous." Will he be pleased to ex- 
plain, how he could have expressed an opinion, in *' terms" 
more *' strong" than housed in ibis speech? His sarcasm covers 
all that is peculiar in our condition, and he declares that pecu- 
liarity to be a curse. Strike the Revolution from our History, 
and we are in the situation of Canada.* What would the pro- 
vincial Attorney-General and his other friends think of the con- 
sistency of Captain Hall, had they found in his volumes aught 
in praise of any of those particulars in which the people of the 
United States differ from them? And this is the person who, 
in publishing a Book, which ministers to the jealousy and con- 
tempt he is thus found exciting, holds the following language: — 
*' The reluctance with which I now take up my pen to trace the 
gradual destruction of my best hopes on the subject, is most 
sincere, and such as nothing short of a conviction of its being 
a duty to my own country could overcome." 

Let us be understood. It may be no crime in Captain Hall 
to magnify the advantages of Canada. Many people applaud 
Serjeant Kite's readiness at oath-taking, *' give me the book — 
'tis for the good of the Service." Speaking of the addition of 
Canada to the United States, he declares, it would be a matter 
of serious consequence to England to find the naval resources 
of the United States trebled, if not quadrupled, at a blow." 
He considers these Colonies not only " useful as nominal de- 
pendencies, but, in a negative point of view — as politically de- 
tached from the United States — even still more valuable to 
us.'' "It seems to be a pretty general opinion that there are 
only two alternatives for Canada — one is to remain in connexion 
with the mother country — the other, to merge into the Mare 
Magnum of the American Confederacy." "Nothing but our 
own indiscretion can ever urge them to court a union with any 
other power. The cards, to use a conrmon expression, are com- 
pletely in our hands, and we have only to play them well." All 
the expenditures on Canada, he is of opinion, " are amply over- 
balanced by the advantages derived from this connexion, whe- 
ther they directly advance our commercial and political prosperi- 
ty, as a naval and manufacturing country, or whether they li9nit 
the maritime power of another nation not very friendly to 
ours.'' It is quite natural that under the influence of such a feel- 
ing, he should be disposed to flatter up the Canadians as to the 
great blessings they enjoy, and the state of their manners; and to 
represent the United States to them in the most odious point of 
view, politically and socially. But we do complain that whilst 
from the beginning to the end of his book, he is seen under the 
unlimited influence of this miserable, peevish jealousy, he should 
put on the air of a philosopher — a citizen of the world — and re- 



11-2 

present himself as actuated throughout by an anxious wish to ex- 
hibit every thing in the United States in the most favourable 
light. After employing such language as A'e have quoted in the 
Canada part of his book, there is to us something very con- 
temptible in his introducing such a declaration as the following, 
into that allotted to the United States: — " For my own part, I 
see no limits to this, and should rejoice with all my heart, if 
America were as far advanced in literature, in science, in mili- 
tary and naval knoivledqe, in taste, in the fine arts, in manu- 
factures, in commerce — in short, in every thing, as any part of 
Europe," 

It is presumed that the English reader must have expected to 
find in these volumes some information with regard to the com- 
plaints which have been heard from Canada. Mr. Huskisson, 
the Secretary for the Colonial Department, in the Debate of 
182S declares that the Canadas were " under a system of civil 
government not adapted to their wants, well being, nor happi- 
ness, nor to maintain their allegiance, nor preserve their atfec- 
tion and good understanding with the mother rountry." He 
also refers to the circumstance of the Governor " having appro- 
priated the revenue, without the sanction of an act of the le- 
gislature, as required bylaw." In the same Debate, Sir James 
Macintosh, said, that he had presented " a petition signed by 
eighty-seven thousand of the inhabitants of Canada, compre- 
hending among its numbers, nine-tenths of the heads «f fa- 
milies in the Province, and more than two-thirds of its landed 
proprietors," and shows, that " the petitioners had the gravest 
causes of complaint against the administration of the govern- 
ment of the Colony." Sir James farther says, " The Govern- 
ment of Quebec, despising these considerations, has been long 
engaged in a scuffle with the peeple, and has thought hard words, 
and hard blows, .lot inconsistent with its dignity. I observe 
that twenty-one bills were passed by the Lower House of As- 
sembly, 1S27, most of them reformatory. Of these, 7iot one 
ivas appt'oved of by the Upper House. Is the Governor res- 
ponsible for this? i answer he is. The Council is nothing bet- 
ter than the tool of the government. U is not a fair and consti- 
tutional check between the popular assembly and the governor; 
but it is the governor's council. The counsellors are all crea- 
tures of the governor; and they sit in council, not to examine 
the bills sent to them, but to concur in the acts of the Governor. 
Of these counsellors, consisting of twenty-seven gentlemen — 
seventeen hold places under the government at pleasure. These 
seventeen divide amongst them, fifteen thousand pounds of the 
public money, which is not a small sum, in a country where one 
thousand pounds a year is a large income for a country gentle- 
man. I omit the bishop, who is perhaps rather inclined to autho- 
rity, but of a pacific character. The nine remaining counsel- 



113 

lors were worn out by opposing the seventeen, and at present 
have withdrawn from attending its deliberations." 

The tourist has forborne, for a very curious reason, to give 
lis any account of these disturbances in Canada, and of the par- 
ties which have long distracted it. The Falls of Niagara made 
a great impression on him: — " I felt, as it were, staggered and 
confused, and at times experienced a sensation bordering on 
alarm, I did not well know at what — a strong, mysterious, sort 
of impression that something dreadful might happen, "It "pro- 
duced a kind of dizzy reverie more or less akin to sleep." This 
feeling he declares he could not shake off. True, he was suffi- 
ciently collected a day or two after, for his Brockville speech; 
but in order to account for " the indifference which I struggled 
in vain to throw off as to the politics of Lower Canada, al- 
though the topic v/as then swallowing up every other conside- 
ration," he gravely declares that he vvas yet under the stunning 
influence of the Falls. " Our recent intercourse with Nia- 
gara, and the many wild and curious scenes," &c. When 
we ask him the meaning of all the noise and clamour, he tells, 
like Mrs. Sullen in the Beaux Stratagem, of the singing in his 
ears. But mark the gentleman's consistency with his own story, 
*' It was my intention, however, notwithstanding the appear- 
ance of this Report and Evidence, to have inserted, at this 
place, a sketch of the discussions alluded to, but I thought it 
right to SUPPRESS it, in consequence of recent changes in 
that quarter, and the disposition which really appears to exist 
on both sides to start afresh, to turn over a new leaf, and to 
join cordially in advancing the prosperity of a country so high- 
ly gifted by nature and by fortune!" He therefore contents 
himself with referring his readers to documents ordered to be 
printed on the 22d July, 1828, and, escaping from facts, adopts 
the more congenial language of assertion. "The foundations 
of those powers which preserve social order are certainly more 
stable and better organized in the Provinces than in the United 
States. Their rulers do not derive their authority from those 
over whom their power is to be exercised; they look up, and 
not down, for approbation, and can therefore use that authority 
with more genuine independence.^' 

It is for Captain Hall's countrymen, rather than for us, to 
complain of this " suppression." He leaves home for the pur- 
pose of seeing things with his own eyes: " I confess I was some- 
what incredulous o( the faming accounts given in England'' 
&c.. Yet after he has made observations on a point of such vital 
importance as that of the popular sentiment in Canada, he thinks 
it politic to "suppress" them, and to refer his readers to a mass 
of documents, which few of them will ever think of looking into, 
and which Captain Hall, it is to be hoped, never examined, 
since they exhibit a picture directly the reverse of that which 
he has drawn. He does not hesitate to recommend to Great 



Ill 

Britain the completion of vast and expensive works, cost lohcit 
they may, and yet withholds information, which might enable 
Parliament to decide how far such an expenditure is likely to 
prove of ultimate benefit. Did he find any thing in the United 
States to "suppress V With regard to that people, heavily taxed 
as he represents them, the only complaint we hear, is of their 
enthusiastic attachment to the Government. For the public 
land there, a stipulated price is received, and yet it is eagerly 
sought for and improved. In Canada the people are exempt 
from taxation, because the pinch of it is felt in Great Britain. 
The Government, instead of receiving a compensation for its 
land, not only gives it away, but has incurred an expense of 
sixty pounds sterling, for each family of Irish paupers, agreeing 
to accept a hundred acres; and yet the temper is such, that Cap- 
tain Hall thinks it unwise publicly to repeat the language of 
disaffection which reached his ear. 

Although the roar of Niagara, had so deafened him, that he 
could not hear the dissensions of Canada, he expresses without he- 
sitation an opinion as to matters, which would seem to demand 
rather more of patient investigation. Thus he says, " TheLaios, 
which are in facty those of England, are out of all sight more 
steady, and, from that circumstance, besides many others, bet- 
ter administered tha^n in the United States." Where he picked 
up this information, he does not deign to inform us. Mr. Tal- 
bot furnishes the following statement: " So complicated are the 
laws, so indifferently understood, and so ill defined, that lawsuits 
are as numerous in every part of the country as excommunica- 
tions and indulgences were in England, in the early days of Hen- 
ry the Eighth." " The Laws by which Lower Canada is go- 
verned, are the Costume de Paris, or, ' The Custom of Paris,' 
as it existed in France, in the year 1666, the Civil or Roman 
Law in cases where the Custom of Paris is silent, the edicts, 
declarations, and ordinances, of the French Governors of Ca- 
nada, the Acts of the British Parliament passed concerning Ca- 
nada, and by the English Criminal Law." " The most griev- 
ous restriction under which the Canadians labour, with respect 
to the tenure of their lands, is that which compels them to pay 
to the Seigneur, what are termed, lodes et veyites, or fines of 
alienation on all mutations of property, en roture. By this 
law, if an estate changes its proprietors half-a-dozen times in 
a year, the Seigneur is entitled, on every mutation, to receive 
one-twelfth of the whole purchase money; which one-twelfth, 
be it remembered, must be paid by the new purchaser, and is 
exclusive of the sum agreed to be given to the actual proprie- 
tor." ^^ Belief IS the revenue of one year dueto the Lord for cer- 
tain mutations." See also, his explanation of "Fief," "quinte" 
" rebat," &c. " It is very unsafe to purchase property in Ca- 
nada, unless the sale is effected by the agency of a sheriff." 

In the Parliamentary discussion of 182S, on the subject of Ca- 



iiada, Mr. Huskisson, the Secretary for the Colonial Department, 
uses the following language: *' There is no possibility of suing 
or being sued, except in the French Courts, and according to the 
French form and practice; no mode of transacting commercial 
t)usiness, except under French customs now obsolete in France. 
In Lower Canada, they go upon the law and system of feudal 
tenure, and the law is more incapable of ever being improved 
or modified, by the progress of information or knowledge, than 
if it still remained the system of France, and the model of her 
dependencies." 

Certainly, this not only beats our Laws ''out of sight," ac- 
cording to the Captain's singular expression, but is a fair match 
for those of Caligula himself, which were " hung upon pillars 
60 high that nobody could read them." (Blackstone.) 

As to the administration of justice, Mr. Talbot gives us 
the following information: "The District Judges, unfavoura- 
ble as public opinion is to their integrity, possess, I dare say, 
as much honesty as their most conscientious neighbours, are 
equally intelligent, and just as deeply read in British Jurispru- 
dence. Many of them in fact, to use plain language, are as ig- 
norant of the laws of the country, as they are of the Code of 
Napoleon; and the Jurors, who are not the most enlightened 
men in the world, are said not be over burdened with scrupu- 
lous consciences. But they are remarkable for a noble inde- 
pendence which causes them to pay as little attention to the 
charge of a Judge as to the evidence of a witness. The for- 
mer, they are confident, knows little more than themselves; 
and as to the latter he might as well tell his tale to the midnight 
breeze, for they generally enter the box determined respecting 
the decision which they intend to give. Pi'edilection for a 
friend, or malice against an enemy, too often influence them in 
their verdicts. Indeed, they seem to know little, and to care 
less, about the moral obligation of an oath; and an honest, un- 
prejudiced, decision, the result of mature deliberation and calm 
■conviction, is seldom to be witnessed," vol. i. p. 411-12. "It 
is an extraordinary circumstance, that there are some few per- 
sons, in almost every district, whose appointment to a Com- 
mission of the Peace, would add respectability to the magis- 
tracy of the country; and yet they are allowed to continue pri- 
vate characters notwithstanding the great necessity there is, for 
appointing such men to offices under Government. In the Lon- 
don district, in which I have resided for several years, I know 
many highly respectable individuals, some of whom are half- 
pay Captains in the British Army, whose names were left out 
of the Commission of the peace, or rather not included in it, 
while many of their neighbours were appointed, who would 
not add to the respectability of a gang of pig-jobbers. The 
fact is, the members of the Executive Government seem de- 
termined to place in every department, civil as well as military. 



116 

such men only, as they are confident will at any time lie down, 
and alloiv their superiors to walk over them," ib. p. 416. 

" If a magistrate, or a military officer, were publicly known 
to disapprove of any of the measures of the Executive Govern- 
ment, no matter how subversive those m.easures tnight be of 
the people^ s rights, he would very soon be deprived of his lit- 
tle share of * brief authority,' and allowed to remain the rest 
of his life a cashiered officer, or broken down esquire," ib. 416. 

'^When Mr. Gourlay was banished from the country, in a 
very unconstitutional manner, his Jlcquaintance, most of whom 
were officers in the Militia, or Justices of the Peace, were, 
to a man, deprived of their Commissio7is, for the simple crime 
of having associated with him. Oppressive treatment will alien- 
ate even the sffections of a child from its parent, and the arbi- 
trary m,easures of a Governm,ent professing to be free, es- 
pecially when such measures are directed against innocent and 
unoffisnding individuals, must infallibly weaken the loyalty of 
a spirited and independent subject. Jf another War ivere to 
break out between Great Britain and the United States, I 
greatly fear, that these discarded officers, ivith many thoU' 
sands of the people in Upper Canada, would warmly resent 
the indignity which they have suffered by ' showing a pair of 
fair heels' to the British Government, and enlisting under 
the banners of the hostile power." 

Captain Hall seems to have rightly thought that this part of 
the picture was so bare as to require a double portion of var- 
nish. 

One of his odd suggestions is, that the terms " Parent State," 
*' Mother Country," &c. , are inappropriate to the relationship 
of England to Canada, and he gravely proposes, (vol. i. p. 414,) 
though with a great deal of unsailorlike circumlocution, to sub- 
stitute '' Husband and Wife." It is not for us to say how far 
this is connected with his evident wish to fix on England a per- 
petual liability for the debts and maintenance of the Colony. 
Every body knows that, in law, a man becomes thus liable, to 
third persons, by holding out a woman as his wife, even though 
no wedding may have taken place. We have nothing to do 
with this, and only refer to the passage, for the purpose of re- 
marking, that whenever he uses the term " Canada," both pro- 
vinces are included. It would involve a breach of law, as well 
as of decency, were the proposal of intermarriage to refer to 
the two in the disjunctive. Now, amongst the assertions which 
he makes, with regard to the country thus designated, is the 
following: "In every part of Canada, we found the inhabi- 
tants speaking English." (Vol. i. p. 265.) This universal 
prevalence of the English language is happily illustrated, when 
we find ourselves (vol. i. p 362) in a boat, which had brought 
up British Government stores, and in which all the boatmen 
spoke " a corrupted or perhaps antiquated sort of French, of 



il4 

which I understood very few words.*'* At page 397, we are 
introduced to a settlement, where ''they spoke French exclu- 
sively;" and we hear, (p. 393,) of *' the French peasantry, who 
form the mass of the population in Lower Canada." Mr. Tal- 
bot, speaking of his perambulation of Quebec, says, " Not a 
word of English did I hear; not a face that was English did I 
see, until, to my great satisfaction, I found myself in a British 
mercantile warehouse, where, on looking around me, and re- 
flecting on the short excursion I had taken, I was reminded, 
that instead of having been engaged in placing the last stone in 
the Tower of Babel, I had only concluded my first walk in the 
city of Quebec." 

Such, then, as we have exhibited it, was the spirit in which 
Captain Hall commenced his sei'ious examination of the United 
States. Full of prejudices, he confesses a "wish" that they 
should be confirmed, rather than removed; and he stood pub- 
licly pledged to his Canadian friends, and to Consistency, to 
prove that our escape from a Colonial condition had thrown us 
back, instead of advancing us, in prosperity, happiness, and 
strength. 

The influence of this temper in leading to the most absurd 
and determined misconception has already been exposed. It 
is, perhaps, most ridiculously displayed shortly after recrossing 
the line, but about matters too trivial to justify our pausing on 
them. At Albany, however, he found the legislature in ses- 
sion. It seems, that the object of the meeting was, "not to 
transact the ordinary business of the State, but to revise the 
laws, 3. favourite eTnployment all over the country. ^^ The 
method of proceeding is thus described: " After prayers had 
been said, and a certain portion of the ordinary formal business 
gone through, the regular proceedings were commenced by a 
consideration of Chapter IV. of the Revised Laws. It appeared 
that a joint committee of the two houses had been appointed to 
attend to this subject, and to report the result of their delibe- 
rations. The gentlemen nominated had no trifling task to per- 
form, as I became sensible upon a farther acquaintance with 
the subject. All the existing Laws of the State, which were 
very voluminous, were to be compared and adjusted, so as to 
be consistent with one another, after which the result was print- 
ed, and laid before the legislature, so that each chapter, section, 
and clause, might be discussed separately, when of course the 
Members of the Council of Revision, had to explain their pro- 
ceedings." 

On the first d^y of Captain Hall's attendance, the following 
sectir^n came under consideration. "A well reguh'.ted militia 
being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the 
people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed." One gen- 
tleman made a speech, with which the Captain was particular- 
ly disgusted, and we have the following glimpse at it. " Pu- 



118 

ring this excursion amongst the clouds, he referred frequently 
to the History of England, gave us an account of the manner 
in which Magna Charta was wrested from, 'that monster,' 
King John, and detailed the whole history of the Bill of Rights." 
Now we respectfully submit, that however superfluous all this 
may have been, it was certainly not in the temper which Cap- 
tain Hall would fain make us believe, is prevalent in all these 
assemblies. It is, assuredly, very different, from, ''For eigh- 
teen hundred years the world had slumbered in ignorance of 
liberty, and of the true rights of freemen," which he considers 
a characteristic piece of bombast. Here was a man willing to 
render a deserved tribute to the brave spirits of the olden time. 
He, it seems, was not afraid to express his gratitude to the Ba- 
rons of England, assembled at Runnemede, and he referred to 
that English Bill of Rights, which has furnished to us an in- 
valuable model. Is there any thing here of the "habit" of 
^'depreciating every thing English," which Captain Hall has 
undertaken to record on the same page? 

But these remarks have diffused themselves over a wide space, 
and the reader will doubtless think it more than time that they 
should be brought to a close. 

We hope that their primary object has not been lost sight of. 
It is to us, comparatively, unimportant, whether Captain Hall's 
book may supply materials for "confusing" those who, in 
Great Britain, regard the present state of things as susceptible 
of improvement. We are little annoyed at sneers about un- 
brushed hats, unpolished shoes, and pantaloons of not an exact 
fit. Still less do we dread its exciting disaffection in the Uni- 
ted States, by the array of miseries which the tourist, not find- 
ing just at hand, is compelled to seek in anticipation. We are 
likely to remain content with our cheap government, cheap 
justice, and cheap food. But a more painful feeling is excited 
by the declaration of an Officer in the service of Great Britain, 
that the United States are, in this country, an object of odium, 
and that it is not worth while to attempt, or even to desire, a 
change of sentiment. We regret the use which may, be made 
of what he has thus put on record. Such statements often pass, 
at the moment, without exciting active resentment, but recur, 
with a decisive influence, at periods of great excitement for 
alleged wrongs or indignities. They may rush from the Me- 
mory into the Passions on the first petition of an impressed sea- 
man — rendering irresistible the appeal of a citizen forced from 
beneath the national flag to fight the battles of a country which 
holds his own in abhorrence, against a friendly power, and un- 
der the orders, perhaps, of the very individual who has mixed 
up this annunciation of hatred, with pointless but insolent sar- 
casm on the country, its institutions, and its people. Those 
who are, hereafter, destined, on either side of the Atlantic, to 



119 

look out on the gloom of ocean for dismal tidings of bloody and 
unnatural strife, and to await in speechless agony the dreaded 
lists of destruction, may well remember with execration the 
efforts which seem to be making to prepare the wa}'^ for a fierce 
and uncompromising struggle. 

It is the object of these pages to expostulate with this spirit 
of wanton mischief. We will be amply satisfied if they induce 
an examination of the trifling, but pernicious, volumes to whicli 
they refer, in a mood different from that which the author as- 
sumes to exist and has laboured to gratify. 

We venture to assert, that if thus viewed, the very phrases 
which Captain Hall has put into the mouths of Americans, to 
convey an idea of their lofty and sanguine pretensions, and 
their dislike of England, will be found to indicate, with the 
greatest clearness, the existence of that deep-seated feeling of 
deference, from which it is so difiicult for a derivative people 
to disengage themselves. Thus he gives us, in derision, an in- 
quiry made of him, by an American friend, whether we were 
not "treading close on the heels of the mother country;" and 
again at Albany, after witnessing the proceedings of the legis- 
lature, he was asked, "Do we not resemble the mother coun- 
try much more than you expected? Can it be seriously thought 
that such language would find its way to the lips of persons 
who habitually delighted to place their institutions in odious 
contrast with those of "the mother country?" Would a Pro- 
testant in England inquire of a Catholic from the Continent, 
with an expression of hope, whether his principles and form of 
worship did not greatly resemble those of the Church of Rome? 
Alas for the temper of a man like Captain Hall, who, in the 
sort oi filial questions put to him, can see nothing but a spirit 
of vanity and intolerance! 

"In no other country," he says, "does there exist such an 
excessive and universal sensitiveness as to the opinions enter- 
tained of them by the English. It may be remarked in passing 
that they appear to care less for what is said of them by other 
foreigners; but it was not until I had studied this curious fea- 
ture in the Americans long and attentively, and in all parts 
of the country, that I came to a satisfactory explanation of it." 

In another place, he says, "I remember one evening, being 
a good deal struck with the driver singing, in a very plaintive 
style, ^ Should auld acquaintance be forgot.' I afterwards 
led him into conversation about our common country, as I 
thought, but to my surprise I found he had never been out of 
North Carolina, though his feelings appeared nearly as true 
to the land of his forefathers as if they had never left it." 
Yet Captain Hall is obliged to resort to an invidious hypothe- 
sis to explain why the Americans should take a peculiar in- 
terest in the opinions entertained of them in " the land of their 
fore-fathers!" 



120 

Let us try if we can reach his heart, by supposing for a mo- 
ment that the amiable little personage who has so large a share in 
these volumes should be destined, amidst the chances of fortune 
to terminate her days in that country. Does he suppose that 
she could speedily forget all that she had seen, and heard, and 
felt in the parent land — and has he yet to learn how those feel- 
ings pass from mother to mother, and from nurse to nurse? 
Does he believe that through a long course of years she would 
not thrill with enthusiasm, when "auldlang syne," recalled 
the recollection of that — 

" Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, 
Land of the mountain and the flood; 

or that she could ever cease to exclaim — 

" Land of my sires, what mortal hand 
Can e'er untie the fihal band. 
That binds me to thy rugged strand ?" 

And if a future Scotch tourist should find amongst her de- 
scendants, this feeling yet alive — displaying itself in the warmth 
of his welcome, and in anxiety for his good opinion — how 
must Captain Hall's indignation kindle at imagining him en- 
gaged in framing some stupid and malignant hypothesis to ac- 
count for all this, and actually converting its existence into a 
subject of ridicule and disparagement! 

The '*unkindness'' of which he speaks, ^' may do much," 
but it has much to overcome. — 

" Naturam cxpellas /wrca tamen usque recurret." 

Let us hope that juster, and more generous sentiments, may 
be cultivated. It was a custom of the States of Ancient Greece, 
which conveyed a beautiful moral, that the memorials of their 
strife should be of perishable materials, and the Thebans were 
justly rebuked in the Amphictyonic Council, for having com- 
memorated in brass their contest with the Lacedaemonians (Ci- 
cero Invent. Lib. 2.) Surely such a policy ought not to be 
forgotten, because we live in an age of Christianity. 



THE END. 



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